Tribulation
by ThatDumbStoryteller
Summary: What would you do for your loved ones? What lines would you cross? There are some things that no matter how noble the intention, can't be undone.
1. Chapter 1: Duties and Responsibilities

Act I: BEGINNINGS

Chapter 1: Duties and Responsibilities

To say that Hiccup was not even slightly prepared for the responsibilities he had to undertake as chief was an understatement. It was like drinking from a waterfall, only to find out that you had forgotten to drink from three or four other waterfalls at the same time or your whole village would drown. He was extremely grateful for Gobber's tutelage in what he was supposed to be doing, otherwise he would have been far more lost than he already was. He had a general impression from watching his father, but actually doing it was entirely different. He was used to being able to slink off and while the days away on dragonback. What's that, a trade negotiation? No thanks, I'd rather be dodging in and out of stone pillars and ludicrous speeds. You need help with what, sorry couldn't hear you over my wanderlust. What'd you need, Dad? Sorry, I'm busy splitting my time between Toothless and Astrid.

Well now all his youthful lack of self-discipline was biting him in the ass. Being Chief meant more than just fighting giant dragons. He was involved in every intimate detail in the village, including many that he struggled to pretend that he cared about. Some days it was hard to give a shit who gets what amount of vegetables in exchange for fish. Seriously, why was that an argument that couldn't be agreed upon by them? Why did he have to get involved? He had more important things on his mind, like storing food for winter.

"Ok, that's fourteen barrels of mead, twenty barrels of fermented fish, and thirty sheep, right?" Hiccup said, glancing up from the sheet of paper he had been recording the entries on. He would prove to be some kind of awful Chief if in their first winter they didn't have enough food to survive the rugged winter months.

"Right," Gobber replied in his usual, extremely thick accent. Hiccup turned his attention to the parchment he held in his hand, bobbing his pencil up and down as he silently counted the tick marks he had made next to various items.

"Twenty six, no twenty seven weeks," he frowned. "It's technically enough, but it wouldn't be very comfortable. And there's little to no wiggle room, if this winter turns out to be extra long."

"Hiccup, you're worrying too much."

"Yeah, it's easy to say this when it's not your responsibility. If I mess up, everyone could die!" Unconsciously reverting to his usual wild hand gestures, Hiccup came dangerously close to smashing his knuckles against a barrel of mead that was stacked up next to him.

"Hiccup, I've done this how many times with your father? We'll be fine. In fact, we've got more food now than we ever have before."

"Yeah, I know you know that, but I still don't want to mess it up. Can you order some more from Trader Johann? Oh, and we'll need some more cattle, chickens, hay, and bird seed." Hiccup paused, snapping his fingers while shaking his hand at eye level. "And whale oil. We need to make sure we have enough for lamps. And while we're on the topic of supplies, I was thinking we might need to go hunt some elk or deer after the Gathering of the Chiefs. Plus, we could use the fur for winter clothing. Which by the way, do you think we-"

"Hiccup!" Gobber finally half-shouted, interrupting the poor young lad—er—Chief who had gone and started rambling again. He looked at the young man in front of him, head full of enthusiasm but lacking in experience. If he looked at the right angle, he could still see him as a boy, bouncing around at his knees like a hyperactive rabbit. Aye, what a fine young man he'd grown up to be. He was so proud of what he'd become, even if it was nothing like what he'd expected from him. In his eyes, there was no finer Viking in all of Berk. Hel, probably in all of the archipelago. And gods, that made him proud, almost as proud as if he was his own son. Had he ever had children, he wished they would have been like Hiccup.

"Aye, Hiccup. I can do that. But you needn't to fret so. Everything will be fine, you'll see."

"Yeah, I'm sure they will be," Hiccup's shoulders slumped slightly, his eyes trailing off into nothing as his mind raced a thousand leagues ahead. He was always planning something, ever since he was a boy. Gobber was glad that of all the things that had changed in the recent years, that hadn't.

"So how's the axe order coming along?" He asked, as the two started walking away from the storage.

"Ah, it's doin' fine! It's a bit harder wit' out you, though. I miss having my lanky assistant!" Gobber roared, slapping Hiccup on the shoulder. Hiccup winced internally as thought his shoulder might have actually come out of its socket on that hit.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I've been real busy lately, and I just haven't been able to be in as often as I'd like."

"Don't you worry, lad. I know that what you're doing out there is more important than what I've got goin' on in me shop. It's just I got used ta havin' ya, is all."

"Still, I often wish I could be there. I find it strangely relaxing, bending iron to my will." A giant grin split Gobber's face.

"A man after my own heart!" Hiccup braced himself for another bone-shattering slap, but it surprisingly didn't come. He chalked it up to the fact that they were leaving their storage areas now, and that Gobber was using his hand to work the door to the outside world. Hiccup stepped outside, breathing in the fresh, Berkian air. When the wind picked up, it got that biting cold feeling that winter was just around the corner. It wasn't the frigid death winds that penetrated your skin and tried to pull your bones with it, but it was also definitely past the warm summer months. He honestly liked this time of year though, the slight edge to the air made the hearths and longhouses feel friendlier. Sure they also felt friendlier still in the dead of winter, but the outside world felt far more inhospitable than it did now. This was kind of the best of both worlds; the temperature was still livable, but the indoors were welcoming. Speaking of which…

"Gobber, what are we doing for the longhouses?"

"The longhouses?" He replied questioningly, raising a blond eyebrow higher than it seemed like should have gone.

"You know, the places people sleep at night, big enough for a whole family?"

"I know what they are Hiccup. What about them?"

"Shouldn't we be spending time fixing some of them up for the winter?" Gobber reached up, scratching his chin thoughtfully as he stared off into the distance, pondering the question.

"We usually leave it up to the families to fix their houses for the winter. But I don't suppose that it could hurt if we gathered the town up to help each other out."

"Excellent, because I have some plans."

"I'm truly surprised." Hiccup kept talking, ignoring Gobber's deadpan sarcasm.

"Most of the housing still has damage left over from when we had to deal with Drago and his army. So that should be our first priority. That means we'll need both more wood and stone, and we it'll be far easier to make some daub before the ice freezes everything in sight. Number two is obviously houses for the dragons."

"Don't we already have a bunch of them?"

"Yes, but since Toothless became the Alpha, we have way more dragons about than before, and they all need a place to stay. That should be priority number two, since there's already some enclosures, plus we can put some dragons in longhouses if need be. Thirdly, if we have the time and resources, it's not a bad idea to build some new longhouses. Given the rate of expansion here recently, reducing the crowding in the halls will probably put everyone in a better mood."

"You know," Gobber said, "you and Toothless have both done a pretty good job assuming the jobs of Chief and Alpha." Hiccup looked at him askance at the sudden topic shift.

"Is this the part where you say 'surprise, you both have a coupla' more years before you stop being idiots?'" Hiccup asked, using grandiose arm movements to properly emphasize his words. Gobber replied with a hearty chuckle.

"Not even. I may like to give you shit on a daily basis just to be sure that your head doesn't get too big, but you are shaping up to be a not terrible Chief. And Toothless, I have no idea what it takes to be an Alpha, but he has it. Seems like every time a dragon does something stupid or sets something on fire, he's there to let them know he'll roast them alive if they do it again." Hiccup snickered.

"Yeah, there's a like three or four monstrous nightmares who once caught my house on fire once; I thought he was going to explode. Needless to say, they all avoid him like the plague now." Gobber joined in on the laughter.

"Aye, I remember. Poor beasts didn't know what was coming their way. I recall being able to hear Toothless' yelling from the docks, and by the time I got all the way up here, he was just finishing up tearing them a new one. Never seen dragons run so fast or look so scared. He can out-yell even the fiercest Viking chief, that I guarantee." Hiccup froze temporarily, his gait hitching in his walk before he returned to normal. Had Gobber not been looking directly at him, he wouldn't have noticed the display at all. "What's the matter, lad?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, but that weren't nothing."

"It's seriously nothing. Nothing important, anyway." Gobber snorted in response, obviously in disbelief. The two continued their walk a few more paces before Gobber spoke up again.

"Is it about the trade meeting, isn't it?"

"That obvious?" Hiccup said with a half sigh.

"Look lad, I know that you're worried about this meeting, but you needn't. Ev'rything will be fine."

"Easy for you to say, if you make a mistake, Berk's ability to trade in the Archipelago won't be ruined. Not only will this be their first time meeting me as Chief, but most of them have yet to meet a friendly dragon yet, and even those that have haven't been around as many dragons as we have on Berk. The whole thing's a disaster waiting to happen."

"You say that like you expect a disaster."

"Don't you? Look at the last few years, they've been mostly disastrous."

"Yeah, but we've always found a way to come out on top."

"Ok, do you have some sort of formula for me to make sure that we do come out of this one on top?"

"We're vikings Hiccup, we improvise and overcome."

"Such great words of wisdom. 'Just wait for disaster to strike and then make it up as you go.'"

"It's worked so far, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, but for how much longer? How long until me and Toothless winging it isn't enough?"

"Hiccup, they're Chiefs, trade partners. This isn't a war. You'll be fine!" Gobber said, swinging open the door to the forge. The two ducked past the short line that had gathered, each person looked ready to pepper Hiccup with questions.

He had moved most of his chiefly duties to his part of the forge for two reasons. First, it made it a whole lot easier to work on the stuff he wanted to when he could spare a minute or two. Second, he just felt more comfortable conducting business from here where he knew the territory. He'd originally tried to make executive decisions from his father's old hall, where he could get a lot of people in there and hear them all at once but it just felt wrong. Maybe his death was too recent, maybe he hadn't fully dealt with his father's death, but he just couldn't do what he needed to there. Here, he was in his element. He was master of all, both man and material and could reform impurities where he found them to make both stronger armor and a stronger tribe.

Gobber retreated to the original half of the forge, where three half-finished axes waited to get their final treatment today before being delivered to the families who purchased them. Hiccup scooted around his table, grabbing a half-finished sketchbook and tossing it onto the countertop. He sat down, opening it to the first blank page and paused for a second or two, breathing in and out slowly. He reached over, pulling a lever threw open the shutters, revealing the first 'customer,' of a sort. Simultaneously short plank of wood inscribed with the word IN flopped onto the sign that hung just above the window facing outward, covering the last word so that the inscription read:

THE CHIEF IS IN

"Hi, how can I help you today?"

"Chief, I have a problem!" Hiccup nodded, motioning to continue. Not that he needed to, Ulf was continuing his rant mid-gesture. "This bastard here owes me four cows and refuses to give them to me!" He half shouted, leaning forward into the window. The man behind him immediately started protesting.

"Not true, Chief! We had an agreement, and he didn't hold up his end, so I didn't hold up mine!"

"Listen here, you slimy bastard-" Ulf began, cocking his fist back.

"Woah woah woah, tell me everything." Hiccup lunged forward, grabbing Sven's hand before it could launch forwards.

Four hours later, Hiccup sighed his relief. Somehow, he'd managed to get them to come to an agreement of one cow. The problem had originated when Obasi and Ulf come to an agreement. Ulf would help Obasi build his shed, and in return Obasi would pay him with four cows. Ulf helped him gather materials from the woods by cutting down logs and such, and even moved them to the build site, but did not help with the actual construction itself. Feeling that Ulf had reneged on his end of the bargain, he refused to pay him.

At this point, Hiccup asked to be taken to the site of the build, so he could see for himself what Ulf had done or what he had not done. After surveying the build site, he realized how big of an undertaking this was, and similarly how much material needed to be gathered for this. And yet, Obasi should have received help on the actual build, since it was a fairly impressively large structure. He thought that a single cattle was sufficient payment for the labor Ulf did in bringing the lumber down. Neither were too happy with the outcome, as they had both come away with less than their ideal outcome. However, they grumbled slightly, shook hands, and made their exchange of payment.

On way back to the Help Desk, Hiccup ran into a whole new issue. Fishlegs came sprinting up, huffing and puffing with a slight gleam of sweat on his brow despite the cold air. Apparently, the Jorgensons were threatening a feud between their two clans. It had started off normally enough, the two families had been eating dinner together. It was half a social gathering and half a business meeting, as the two were coordinating a cut of the fish brought in by the Ingerman's in exchange for material from the Jorgenson's. However, since it was cold outside, Mrs. Ingerman thought it would be kind to serve some hot drinks, and unfortunately spilled some on Spitelout's lap.

Spitelout was never known for being the most rational of men, nor had he achieved the reputation of a drama queen undeservedly. Spitelout essentially flying into a rage over minor matters was fairly commonplace, unfortunately. When Mrs. Ingerson tripped, sending the hot liquid onto Spitelout's genitals, she knew there would be consequences. Nobody could have foreseen how much of a brouhaha he would create. Hiccup, despite being minutes away from going back to his Help Desk, had to go over and calm down the Jorgensens. After a good couple hours of haggling and debating, Hiccup had successfully talked down Spitelout from his overwhelming rage, and settled on the Ingerman's paying a quarter barrel of fish as recompense for his 'discomfort.' Despite it being seemingly unfair for an accident, it was a small price to pay to reopen the business negotiations for the Ingerman's. The deal they were working for would benefit the Ingerman's more than it would for them to keep those specific fish. The addition of those extra materials would have been a godsend for their family, allowing them a lot more flexibility when trading with others.

By the time that Hiccup was done however, daylight had left the majority of the sky. The bare edges on the horizon were lit in a vibrant ochre, fading upwards into a pure blackness marred only by the twinkling stars. The brilliantly clear night beckoned him, begging to be flown in, to be explored. Even though the relative warmth of the daylight air had faded to bitter cold, he still felt drawn to the skies above. A rush of wind tousled his already unkempt hair as a set of leathery wings folded next to him, causing a dark shape to hurtle to the ground.

"How's it going, bud?"

 _"Could be worse. Some of the new guys still aren't adjusted to the rules yet."_

"Oh, what happened?" Life had improved drastically since Hiccup had picked up Dragonish. It's not like they struggled to communicate before, Toothless could understand Hiccup and Hiccup could get maybe 75% of the message via the growls, grunts, and body language Toothless gave off. Now though, they could have conversations about topics that required a finesse that was just harder to do through non-verbals. Like this, for instance.

 _"So there's this new Gronkle that arrived a day or two ago, Rockjaw I think his name is. He's uhh... he's uhh…"_

"Difficult?"

 _"That's a nice way of putting it. Anyways, a group of us were helping out with building some more houses on the north slope."_

"And?" Hiccup suddenly felt uneasy about where this story was going.

 _"Well, Rockjaw thought our supplies looked delicious and ate about half of our rock supply before anyone noticed."_ Hiccup groaned in frustration, his shoulder slumping slightly as he rocked his head from side to side. _"Yeah, I felt similarly. Except I was a tiny bit more angry._ "

"What? You, angry? I'm shocked I tell you. I don't think you've ever been angry before." Toothless snorted.

 _"Don't make me bite off your other leg."_

"Oh har-dee-har-har. You and I both know you wouldn't do that." Toothless sighed, a great puff of steam forming before him in the cold night air.

 _"Yeah, you're right,"_ he paused, casting a sideways glance at Hiccup. _"I much prefer the taste of sheep."_ Toothless savored the expression on Hiccup's face. Toothless tried to contain himself, but he soon erupted into his signature, chortling dragon laughter.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, loser." Hiccup said in mock anger, shoving Toothless's shoulder, jostling him slightly. "We both know you don't eat people."

 _"I mean, not if you have any other choice, no."_

"Hey!" Toothless gave him the most mocking look of innocence he could muster.

 _"Hey what? You're telling me that before, if you were starving, you wouldn't have eaten dragon?"_

"I'm fairly confident the answer is no, given that I could have easily killed you if I had wanted to."

 _"Oh please, I was waiting for you to get closer so I could counter attack."_

"Uh huh. Right. The ropes all around you said otherwise."

 _"Well anyways, I could have eaten more of this one guy had I wanted, but I was only able to grab a piece of his leg as he was falling. Almost a waste of good meat. Using a very broad definition of 'good'… and 'meat.'"_ A smile played on Toothless lips as he struggled to contain another fit of laughter.

"Hilarious. You're hilarious." Toothless swung his head, shoving Hiccup in the arm, almost knocking the lanky man over. By the time he had righted himself, they were both smiling and chuckling. Hiccup tossed an arm around Toothless' neck in a half hug, half stranglehold. He was kinda curious about what the answer would be, but also kind of horrified at what the answer might be. Eventually his curiosity got the better of him.

"So, what do I taste like?" He asked after a few moments delay.

 _"Like really really chewy chicken. Not a huge fan, honestly. Seriously, sheep taste way better than you."_

"Well that's good to know at least. In the event of a famine I'll be low on the eating list."

" _I think if things ever got that bad we could just fly somewhere with more food long before any of us turned to you as a food source._ "

"Well I appreciate the concern, anyway." Hiccup leaned into Toothless' body, using him as a shield as the wind began to pick up, simultaneously absorbing some of the body heat that emanated off of his scaly friend in abundance.

"But seriously though, everything's ok Mr. Alpha Lord of the Dragons, May His Name Forever Be Praised?" Toothless huffed at Hicccup's mockery, though it may have been a bit deserved. The first couple days he'd been Alpha—it may have gone to his head a bit. Thankfully Hiccup smacked some sense into him before he became an overbearing prick. The two of them were really good at that, smacking each other in the head one the other was being a dumbass.

" _Yes, everything is fine. Just busy trying to get the last few shelters built before winter arrives in full force."_

"Yeah, I hear that. Anyways, I am going to head home, hopefully Astrid's back by now. You coming?"

 _"Maybe, I still have some things I need to do. Is Astrid cooking dinner?"_

"Probably."

 _"I think I will be a while."_

"You eat raw fish!"

 _"And somehow she still manages to mess it up."_ Toothless' eyes widened as if he was witnessing atrocities take place just a few feet away.

"Hey now!"

 _"Am I wrong?"_

"Well, you're exaggerating significantly." Toothless looked at him with a cocked eye. "Ok, maybe not that significantly but she doesn't mess up raw fish!" Toothless chortled in laughter again.

 _"Fair enough, but she is still an awful cook."_

"Well just because she's not a masterful cook, doesn't make it awful."

 _"Whatever you say."_

"Last chance to come inside by the fire before it gets really cold outside."

 _"I honestly have things I need to take care of."_

"Alright, suit yourself. We'll leave the door unlocked." Hiccup pushed himself off of his mobile body-warmer, and set a brisk pace down the hill. Toothless watched him walk a few more paces before launching in the air.

With his tail-fin locked in place, he couldn't maneuver as precisely as he wished, but it was good enough for flying around Berk. He soared well over the viking town which was slipping into slumber as the remaining slivers of light slipped from the sky. He shrugged off the nuisance of the biting cold winds, preferring to stay up and watch from above. Even with his limited flight capabilities, he preferred just drifting to being cooped up on the land.

Of course, the uncountable hours both he and his ancestors had spent hunting in the dark gave him impeccable night vision. When he had been raiding Berk, he always did his best to take advantage of the humans' comparative blindness at night. Even when he and Hiccup were walking around Berk at night, an area that Hiccup was intimately familiar with, Toothless occasionally had to nudge him in the right direction to keep him from walking into a stray bucket or something.

Combining his natural abilities to see with the lights that his human friends seemed to always have lit, and it might as well have been broad daylight for him. Every movement was picked up, both the humans doing menial tasks and getting ready to bed down for the night and the dragons _actively doing what they were not supposed to do._ Toothless swooped down as soon as he realized what a mess these two good-for-nothing dragons were up to. They were _supposed_ to help build structures so that they could spend the winter in a warm building, but who knows what these two flying thunderstorms were doing.

" _Hey! What are you doing?_ " Toothless snapped angrily, pulling up sharply as he landed, sending a quick blast of light twigs and dust into the faces of a Gronkle and a Hideous Zippleback.

" _What?"_ The Gronkle, Boulder Tail, responded.

" _You heard me, what are you doing, exactly?"_ Toothless narrowed his eyes, bringing his face down closer to the short, stocky dragon.

" _Alpha I uh…"_ The gronkle trailed off into further unintelligible grumbles that wasn't Dragonish in the slightest.

Toothless had to swallow his irritation for a second. " _What did I originally tell you to do?"_

" _Build shelter?_ "

" _Did I say how?"_

 _"Put melted rock at bottom of the naked tree?"_

" _Yes, that. So what were you, and both of you, doing?"_ He said, spinning briefly to look at the Hideous Zippleback that was cowering slightly behind the partial structure, one head poking around to the side and the other above the half-built wall.

" _We were doing that for time"_ The pair of Zippleback heads nodded fervently.

 _"And then…"_ Toothless prodded.

 _"We thought how much fun it be if we played with rocks instead of melting."_ Unable to smack his forehead, Toothless ground his teeth in frustration. He somehow managed to speak in a calm vice.

 _"Why don't you two go back to what you were told to do, and you can play when you're done with your work?"_

 _"Yes Mister Toofless."_

 _"Yes Mister Toothless."_ The two heads said, finally chiming into the conversation. The Gronckle looked crestfallen.

" _Yes Alpha."_

" _Alrighty then, I'll leave you three to your work."_ He leapt into the air, swooping gracefully in a big arc, coming back down and buzzing the construction site so they knew he was still there. Morons.

He didn't really have a _problem_ with other dragons, just sometimes they pissed him off. They were so obviously not as smart as him, from their speech patterns to their logical reasoning abilities—or lack thereof. Especially Gronkles, they pretty much could be summed up into "See rock, eat rock, sleep by rock." He was just hoping that the newcomers could pull their weight without supervision. Obviously that wasn't the case.

I mean seriously, it is obvious how they will need shelter soon, do they think it just grows up out of the ground? I mean, probably. Gronkles were never known for their intelligence. Mostly just jaw strength. Toothless leveled out his flight, coasting slowly over the water that gleamed back at him with the moon rippling on its surface. He wished Hiccup were here. They could take this moment to go adventuring again. How he missed those days of carefree abandon. Just the two of them against the world. They could go farther and faster than anyone else, setting up camps on islands no dragon—or man—had ever set eyes upon before. Each day their campsite would change, each day they would learn new things, try new food, and sometimes meet new dragons—and people. Usually dragons though. A light splash grabbed his attention.

Toothless whirled, spinning halfway over and pumping his wings hard, gaining speed as he sped past the foamy wave tops. His jaw opened, rows of teeth snapped into place, gleaming white in the moonlight. He tucked his wings, diving into the water. He emerged a few seconds later, wings bursting through the surface, casting water in all directions as he flapped hardily to regain the speed he had lost diving into the water. Droplets showered he water behind him as the wind ripped the remaining condensation off of his body. Toothless grinned in the night air, readjusting his teeth on the mouthful of fish he had grabbed.

He looped upwards, back towards the cliffs that had become home. It's odd how a few years and a choice can change everything so much. He thought that after those years of impunity 'that puny human' was going to be the one to kill him would have been the ultimate irony. But then the knife that was aimed at his heart instead cut the ropes that bound him. At first he didn't believe his own skin; he had seen the knife raised overhead for the fatal blow, why would there be a subtle rubbing against his ribs? But no, the puny human had set him free.

In that moment, that instant, he made a choice that changed his life forever. By all rights, he should be dead or worse… captured and made to train their humans against his own kind. He remembered jumping up in a rage, furious at this human for capturing him, furious at himself for getting caught, and frustrated that his mortal enemy had shown him mercy. It was so much easier to kill humans when they were killing him. After all, he didn't kill humans for the sport of it. It was a kill or be killed world out there, especially at his then home. So why did this human, this tiny weakling, the only one to have bested him not kill? A million thoughts had whirled through his mind. He had started building an immense fireball to cook this human where he was, trapped beneath his claw. This close, he saw the terror built up in his eyes. Was this how the human felt? His fire evaporated into a scream that undoubtedly scared the shit out of the tiny human. Bah, one human. What could sparing one human possibly do in the grand scheme of things? Boy was he wrong.

Now these cliffs that once meant another fight and another struggle meant home and safety. What an odd twist that life brings. Toothless swept low before swinging his wings upwards like a sail to catch the wind, slowing him rapidly so that he fell the few feet to the ground where he could enjoy his meal in private. He dropped the mouthful onto the ground, catching them a few at a time so he could savor the meal more. A few wriggled mightily, doing their best to flop back to the cliff and into the water. He gave the runners a chance to get away before hopping over to gulp them up.

Satisfied, he spun in a circle a few times, heating the rocky ground beneath him. He laid down, a sigh being pushed out of him as he hit the ground. That hit the spot.

Food.

Damnit! That's what he had been forgetting! The realization hit him like a rockslide. He had totally forgotten about organizing additional food gathering. They'd been getting new dragons arriving at Berk almost every day, and he hadn't adjusted the amount of food he had coming in each day to match the extra mouths, especially considering the coming wintry months, they needed the extra food. And now came the critical decision. Should he get up and go address the problem, or keep laying here where the ground was already the perfect temperature? The ground did feel really nice…

After a few more minutes of deliberation, Toothless finally listened to his responsible side. He reluctantly jumped upwards, beating the ground with the downdraft of his wings. Food was one of those things he really had to ensure that there was enough of, or there'd be a mutiny for sure. All the dragons who had originally moved into Berk had no issues with him being in charge, but that wasn't necessarily the case with the new arrivals. They tolerated his Alpha status begrudgingly. They didn't care that he was a Night Fury, or that he had allegedly made an Alpha back down. To them, it was all hearsay, and they weren't huge fans of being subservient to someone that was smaller than them. But, everyone else went with it, so they went with it… for now. That's why Toothless was so tough on everyone, they had to know that he wasn't going to show favoritism to anybody, that he led everyone equally, regardless of how long they'd been there. And above all that, that he, as Alpha, would provide for them all. If there were to be a food shortage, well that would be all that the upstarts would need to start a dragon civil war, something he had no desire for.

Toothless sped through the rocky outcroppings, heading for home. Even if he hadn't been familiar with the housing at all, it wouldn't have taken long to figure out which one the Chief lived at. It was the biggest one, sat up on the hill looking down across the rest of the village. It had a commanding presence that let everyone know who was in charge and who was not. Of course he'd lived in there before he was Alpha, something about best friends with the son of the Chief which apparently comes with its own perks.

For a while he just shared a room with Hiccup and Stoic the Vast kept to the master bedroom. That had worked well, for a long time. After Stoic died though, there had been some changes. Astrid moved in, and Hiccup and her had taken the master bedroom. With Astrid, came Stormfly, and both she and Toothless had their own rooms. It was nice having some like company in the house, but damn if it didn't mean some competition for the freshest fish. The new housemates had almost fully adjusted to their new roommates. It had taken them a bit, nobody really liked talking about why there was suddenly more room in the house. It had only been a couple of months since the 'incident,' and they were just now feeling comfortable in the house, though the first couple of weeks were the worst. Toothless couldn't tell if it was harder on him or Hiccup, but there wasn't any joviality in the household at that time.

Toothless slowly glided downwards, circling once to land on the roof. It had been a couple of years since Hiccup had installed the 'Dragon Door' which was merely a hatch on the ceiling that could be opened and closed at his (or Stormfly's) leisure. It worked well too, it was simply a wooden door with a rope on it that they could grab onto easily, and another rope on the inside that they could use to pull it shut. He found out rather quickly that if he was going to use it at night, he needed to let it down lightly, or a grouchy human would berate him in the morning for waking them up. Stormfly made the mistake herself the first couple of times, but an irate Astrid solved that problem. However, since it was not quite the human's usual bedtime, he didn't feel the need to be quite as discreet as he would be. He jumped inwards, letting the door drop back in place with a 'whump.'

A light 'tak' noise accompanied each foot step as Toothless' claws clicked against the hard wood floors of the home. Looking back, he could remember the outside of the house in great detail from the many raids he had done beforehand. He could pick out the Chief's house from one of a myriad of details, from its craftsmanship to its position. He had sort of wondered what the inside of it looked like. He had seen the inside of the regular human longhouses, but even then he'd only seen those when they were on fire. The thought that one day he'd walk through them leisurely would have never crossed his mind.

As he walked towards Stormfly's room, his head drifted to the left, his eyes falling on a shield that adorned the wall. It was an ornate, decorative shield that was etched with Hiccup's family history. He paused, noticing the sheen of newly-cut metal on the lower left corner. He leaned closer until the shield filled his vision. Just below the images of Stoic the Vast's heroic last moments were a few new images. It was the symbol that Hiccup wore on his shoulder—the symbol that he had made for a night fury—joining in an alliance with Hiccup and Astrid's joint crest; a symbolic representation of his and Hiccup's partnership and friendship—he assumed. It was probably something Hiccup did late at night when he was trying to work through a village problem and wanted a distraction. Toothless let out a gust of steam through his nose, nodding slightly. It was something he never had thought about, but was nonetheless appreciated. A light tapping of claws on wood accompanied a new voice.

 _"What are you looking at?"_

Toothless glanced to the right before looking back at the shield. _"Nothing, just at the shield. I was actually coming to see you, Stormfly."_

 _"What about?"_

 _"Food, mostly. Have you adjusted the hunts to account for the new dragons we've been getting?"_

Stormfly straightened up for a moment, before squawking a reply. _"I have gotten more, but not much more. How many more food will we need?"_

 _"I don't know off the top of my head, I'll have to check with Hiccup, see how much we'll need. Just be ready to tell the others that they'll need to gather more than they are currently getting."_

 _"No worry, Toothless, we will get it done."_

 _"Alright, I appreciate it,"_ Toothless said, sidling back towards where he came from, and towards his own room.

He passed back through the dining area, taking note of its relative disarray. Cookware was still scattered about, clumps of food still stuck to the inside. Whoever's turn it was to clean up obviously hadn't done their job that night. Besides that, the eating utensils were still on the table, with food still on the plate. They hadn't done any cleaning at all, the lazy bastards. He sniffed at what was left on the table; it used to be cod. He had no idea what Astrid had done to it, but it smelled strange. It had definitely begun as cod, but now was something else, some sort of abomination that she had concocted trying to better her cooking skills. She obviously still had more learning to do.

Toothless left the kitchen, heading back towards his room, which was past the master bedroom. As he passed, he heard some giggling accompanied by an unmistakable smell that he had come to realize meant that Astrid and Hiccup were—preoccupied. He grinned slightly, suddenly understanding why the meal had been so rapidly abandoned. He lumbered past, realizing there was no reason for him to disturb them for the sake of dishes.

He quickly reached his room, which he had spent more time than he liked to admit in furnishing it how he wanted. Humans had some weird and strange habits, but their homebuilding was one of the things he really liked. It really felt like… well like home. It was a space that was constant, that he could come back to and have some solace in. His bed was a stone that he had heated and reshaped until perfection. He had some older tail fins decorating the back wall and some maps that Hiccup had made on the left wall. He had some old keepsakes leaning up against the right wall, like a piece of the tusks from the Red Death, an old log that he had played with in his youth, things like that. All in all, he was very satisfied with how his place looked.

He climbed up on to his bed, his breath creating a low heat that warmed his bed to a nice, toasty temperature that made him immediately sleepy. He lay down, his head fitting into the curves of the rock perfectly. In the last few moments before he fell asleep, a million thoughts raced through his head, each one vying to be the 'last thought' before sleep, each one something that he needed to remember to do as Alpha. But they could wait until tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2: The German

A/N:

Welcome back Guest. Glad you're still here for the ride. Don't worry, it will be posted... in time. I've been exceptionally busy. This is the first time I've done something that hasn't been work related since I posted chapter one.

As a side note, this is a super short chapter. The shortest in the whole story. Well the epilogue is a bit shorter, but besides that this is the shortest chapter. However, it introduces a key character in the story. And part of why I wanted to write the whole story is so that I could start foreshadowing future plot points as early as this chapter. There are several details that are key to the story arc as a whole.

Chapter 2: The German

Agilulf was tired of this nonsense. He'd been listening to trade disputes for hours on end, and there was only so much he could take. He knew that as the Chief of his tribe it would come with doing pedantic bullshit, but there were some days he could deal with it better than others. This was one of those days where the minutia of the job were starting to get to him. His middle fingers traced J like patterns between his upper eyelids and his temples and he tried his best to keep his sanity. He'd processed about fifteen whole trade disputes today, and he had one left, that meant he had just a few things left to do today. After finishing this next trade dispute, he would go meet with a messenger from the Vargiones tribe to discuss whatever the hell they had sent a messenger to discuss. Finally, after that, he could go about his personal life, being a father and a husband.

With a final trace, he flicked his fingers downwards and away from his face. "Send them in," he said with a disgruntled tone. He straightened up trying to give the impression that he deeply cared about what he was about to hear, despite his feelings for the contrary. He'd heard fifteen variants of "this person said he'd do this but he didn't, he did that instead, so he owes me something in recompense" and wasn't expecting this to be any different.

"Chief, Gaufrid owes me ten whole cattle!" Ortwin exclaimed immediately.

"I owe no such thing!" He replied hotly, with an accusatory finger pointed at Ortwin. "This man reneged on his end of bargain so I owe him nothing." What a surprisingly fresh and unique dispute. As Agilulf held up his hand in a 'stop' gesture, the two men's bickering slowly faded into nothing. He pointed towards Ortwin.

"Tell me your side of the story."

"Alright Chief, so there I was, going about my business—and as you know, I'm a very honorable tradesman," Ortwin paused, looking up at the Chief whose frown deepened. Ortwin gulped, before continuing on with a slight stutter. "H-honorable, you see. Gaufried came up to me one day, about two months back, and he had a proposal. I create a beautiful gold necklace, and in return I would receive ten cattle. Well, Chief, I held up my end of the bargain. I created the most magnificent necklace that any in the tribes had ever seen! And in return? Nothing! Not a single cow, not even a calf! And Chief? I demand recompense."

Agilulf turned his eyes toward Gaufried, leaning forward as he did so. His fingertips drummed against each other before him as he turned his cool gaze on the other merchant. "And what do you make of his story?"

"It is mostly correct."

"Mostly?"

"What Ortwin has failed to leave out is that not only was he significantly late on the delivery of the necklace—which is something we had originally agreed upon—but the workmanship was far lower than I expected, and is not worth the original ten cattle promised. I would be happy to pay all ten, if it was both when and what we agreed upon."

"Do you have a written document, detailing a schedule?"

Gaufried stiffened before responding. "No sir, we made an oral agreement."

"So it is your word against his?"

"Yes sir."

"Do you have the necklace?" Gaufried reached behind him, pulling out a golden object. He passed it up for inspection.

Agilulf took it, running his hands over it with a delicate touch. It was stiff, flat, and wide. It had the look of a flattened snake, fat in the middle but with golden hinges allowing it to flex at evenly spaced places. A series of loops and swashes crossed along the surface, with a decorative pattern etched into the space untouched by the extra gold attached to the surface in swashes. However, Agilulf's fingers felt many dents and cuffs. He extended his arms as far as he could, scanning the surface of the necklace with a keen eye, looking for mistakes that would make it unworthy of the price agreed upon. Eventually, he stirred, speaking in a soft tone, just loud enough for both to hear.

"Gaufried is correct, this is not worth ten cattle. Given that he was correct about this, I also believe that he was correct about the timing. I offer you two choices, Ortwin. You may either accept two cattle as payment, or you will melt the necklace and start again, this time crafting the necklace you promised originally. Dismissed"

The two left, Ortwin protesting loudly, but Agilulf was already done with all this trade nonsense for the day. He could already smell aroma from the soup bubbling in his kitchen, could hear the pitter patter of his kids running about his house, could feel his wife's embrace after the long day. And boy how he longed to see her after this day. It was tiring, but not the satisfying tiring of hard work, but the unsatisfying tired of enduring drudgery.

He rose to his feet, glad that the day was over. He cleared the distance between his seat and the door rather quickly, his anxiousness to leave overtaking his tiredness. As he reached the door, he heard a commotion on the other side.

"But I must talk to him at once!" came the angry, high pitched voice. Motherfucker. He was so close.

"I'm sorry, but the Chief is busy, you'll have to wait until tomorrow."

"It's vitally important that I speak to him immediately! It is a matter of between the Vargiones and the Levoni!"

"Yeah, I don't give a shit. You'll have to wait until the morning. Come back later" Agilulf weighed the pros and cons of walking through the door and addressing the problem. On one hand, he'd deal with the issue now so he didn't have to deal with it later. On the other hand, he'd have to deal with the Vargiones. Against his better judgement, Agilulf stepped into view.

"What's wrong," he said, doing his best to hide his exasperation. "How can I help?" The man, who was shorter but very sturdy, stepped out from behind the guard with a smug, self-satisfied look on his face.

"Well first off, your guard was extremely rude to me, and disrespectful towards my position!"

"He was just doing his job," Agilulf replied curtly. "Anything else?"

"Yes! You and your tribe, have greatly offended the Vargiones."

Agilulf suppressed a smirk. "How so?" He said quickly. The Vargiones were well known throughout the region for being easily offended and trying to get something in return. Due to their size, they could easily take on all of the tribes in the vicinity in a one-on-one fight. It was so well known, that there were many jokes at their expense (behind their backs, of course, no need to further antagonize them) about how they acted.

"I was going about my life, conducting trade when one of your traders had the audacity to show me the bottoms of his feet! The bottoms!" he screeched in outrage. He huffed a couple of times, making small, quick, angry arm gestures.

"I can see why you're upset," Agilulf said dryly after a few moments of silence.

"Yes! Thank you, now I demand some sort of action be taken or there will be serious consequences. Definitely in trade, possibly with military retaliation!"

"Don't you worry; we'll do something on our side to deal with the situation."

"But what will you do?"

Agilulf had the realization that he honestly didn't give a shit, and he wanted to not deal with this now. Preferably ever. Maybe if it was something of importance he'd have cared, but a simple misunderstanding he couldn't care less about. "I'll tell you what. It's very late, why don't you stay here at my expense, and we'll discuss it in the morning?"

"Yes, I'll do just that."

"Very good, I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yes we will!" he said self-righteously.

Agilulf motioned with his head to the guard, who used his burly, broad shoulders to forcibly turn the man away from the Chief. He watched as the guard took the man towards the guest house. He disliked the Vargiones, but then again there were precious few other tribes he liked. There were many that he tolerated, a decent amount he disagreed with, and a small few he held open contempt for. The unfortunate thing about the Vargiones is that due to their size, wealth, and might, every tribe in the region had to endure their bullshit. He shook his head, half in disgust and half in amusement at his antics. He was a strange, pitiable little man, focused purely on his political means instead of on things that really mattered.

Agilulf turned his back on the comical scene of the man trying his best to convince the escort twice his size of his supreme importance. The warmth of the last light of the early summer sun warmed his face as he walked back towards his house. He could have chosen any path back to his house; he had a few of them worked out, that allowed him to go home and visit different parts of the village each day. It was a mix of being chiefly and being friendly, and he was happy to do it. But today, he broke his schedule so he could take his favorite way back.

It took him past all his favorite sites. First, it took him to the outskirts of the village, where there was a patch of Fire Lily flowers, their gleaming reddish bulbs signaling the beginning of the summer months. That meant growth. Kids would be running around, playing throughout the long days, happy to be free of being cooped up from the winter months, their appetite for fun mayhem merely whet by the short springtime. And now, by the end of each day, the kids were let loose to frolic and cause unnecessary destruction to their heart's content. This time of year was also when they started seriously tending to their crops. Things were growing, and after planting everything just a short while earlier, now they managed all their crops to ensure they had a bountiful harvest come fall. And since plants had finally begun growing in spring, they were now able to eat food that hadn't been stored up since before the winter months again.

Further down on the right, the windows of the forge filled the path with heat. He'd always liked the forge. The smell of hot metal mixed with sweat made an excellent melody for the high notes as the smiths conducted the metal into new shapes. Looking in, Agilulf could see one such man bent over a rod of metal, burning hot and laid against an anvil. A hammer was raised high above his head, and the ringing of metal clashing with metal filled the air. Their work was impressive, to say the least. Not only did it give them additional influence in trade, but it was essential to the farming they did. Most importantly however, it prepared them for war. He had some of the best smiths in the world, and they outfitted the Levoni with excellent weapons, far superior to anything the Vargiones had. It was a matter of pride for Agilulf, the smiths, and the Levoni as a whole.

Lastly, his walk took him through a bit of residential areas, giving him a glimpse into what was going on with his people. He always found it good to keep close tabs on the various families. It had helped him prevent feuds on many an occasion, and was just generally a good practice for maintaining friendships. As he walked past the houses, he was greeted by mostly smiling faces. Times were good for the Levoni, and he was confident in his abilities to keep those going.

And lastly, his absolute favorite stop of all, his own house.

Long gone were the days where he dropped all forms of responsibility as soon as he got home. In fact, in some areas, his level of responsibility had increased. Not that he minded, really. There were some days where he wished he could just come back, kick his feet, and take some time to relax in the comfort of his own home. He could still do that when he needed to, but just not in house, he'd have to go to somewhere alone and in the woods to do that. But overall, the tradeoff was worth it.

"Daddy!"

A grin spread over Agilulf's features as he opened his arms wide to embrace his two kids as they ran out the door to greet him. This was worth the additional responsibility. He chuckled through his smile as he was led inside by his two minions.

"Hey, how was your day?" his wife Auda said, welcoming him with a smile and kiss.

"Oh, you know. The usual," he said after their quick greeting. "Today was Trade Dispute Day."

"Ah," she said with a knowing grimace. "Your favorite."

"Oh yes," he said with a pained nod. Unfortunately, that was as far as he got with his explanation of the day before his kids dragged him back to somewhere else in the house to show him what they had 'created' that day. Auda watched them with for a few seconds, amused at her kids' antics. She turned back to towards prepping dinner for the four of them, a smile gracing her face as she listened to the high pitched squeals of her kids mixed with the hearty chuckles of Agilulf.


	3. Chapter 3: Astrid the Taskmaster

Chapter 3: Astrid, the Taskmaster

Astrid's heart pounded in her chest, each pumping beat willing her to push further, push faster. She crested the next hill, a burning sensation filling her legs, urging her to stop. To her, that just meant she needed to keep pushing forward. This was where the wind met the sail, she couldn't slow down now. She could feel herself accelerate as she went down the next hill. Some strands of hair had pulled loose on the run, and whipped around her face in a frenzy spurred on by the rush of the wind.

She pitched forwards as she reached the bottom, beginning the sharp ascent up the next incline with a grunt and some serious complaining from her legs. Her breath grew shorter and faster as she took shorter and shorter steps. She was better than this hill. She was stronger than this hill. This hill would not beat her. Nothing would beat her. Not now, not ever. The fire in her legs torched their way up her body, slowly settling in her lower back. She crested the top of the hill, sucking a lungful of clean air into her lungs. It was only downhill from here on out.

She sped her legs as fast as she could physically push them… which was just a bit slower than she had run on the previous downhill run. She pumped her arms mightily, willing her legs to follow in response. Just a little further, she could see the finish line. Faster, c'mon legs, move! At this point, it was more her brain than her muscles running. The small wooden pedestal that she marked the end of her run grew closer. And closer. And closer. All she could see was that small wooden structure, filling both her eyes and her mind. She could get there faster. She sped forward, slamming her palm against a wooden handle, snapping a door at the top of the contraption shut. She collapsed on the ground, gasping for air.

It was a clever device, really. One day, she had said something offhand about how she thought she was getting faster. Since nobody could keep up with her, she couldn't really say for sure because she had nobody to compare herself too. Lo and behold, a mere week later Hiccup with his freakish mind had created something new. The top part was a funnel, with a trap door that opened or closed, letting you start or stop the flow of sand. Open it when you start running, close it when you're done. The bottom part collected the sand, and had a bunch of tick marks along the side so that she could determine exactly how long she'd been running. It was ingenious, and very Hiccup. She rolled over to her side after her legs stopped threatening to self-combust.

"Twenty-four and a half marks?" She exclaimed in disgust. It had been twenty-three just two days ago. What the hell had she done in the last few days that made her slow down so much? Oh right, there was the Fishlegs and Ruffnut wedding feast. Yeah, that would do it. Still, she expected more out of her body. She'd have to train harder in the next few days.

She spent a few seconds sitting there, thinking about the route she had just run. She could have run it differently. Not shorter, that would be cheating. Just differently. She burned out on the uphills, maybe if she saved her energy on the downhill and took larger steps on the up, she could save both time and energy overall. Regardless, it was a question best left answered on her next run.

Eventually, she stood up, sweeping the wayward hairs back into the braid that dangled from her head. Soon however, she'd have to change her hairstyle to a bun. A change that she was looking forward to. With that change, many things would be suddenly different in her life. Some of them she would be able to adjust to quickly, like not having the weight of the braid bouncing painfully as she ran. Other things, like the abrupt status change, she was already getting used to. She had always been well respected within the Hooligans for her skills as a warrior, but that was the extent of it. Now, wherever she went people were going out of their way to be nice to her. Soon it would be 'Misses Haddock' this and 'Misses Haddock' that. The few times she had gone elsewhere for trade, she had been highly amused to see the abrupt change—sometimes mid-sentence—from "some stupid fuckin shieldmaiden from Berk" to "Yes, Chief's Betrothed, what can I do for you?" Though to be fair, some of it was from her own doing. She knew they were trying to take advantage of her, so she pulled out the Chief's Betrothed card, and said something along the lines of "give me a fair deal or I'll castrate you." So there was that.

Unfortunately, she couldn't really do that sort of thing very often. She was a role model now. She was trying to set a good example for the kids in the village by doing the right things. Hiccup insisted that she show kids that there was always a non-violent answer to the problem at hand, which was such bullshit. Sure there was a non-violent solution, but sometimes the violent one was just so much more efficient.

Once she was sure her hair was contained, the role model picked up her axe, returning it to its resting spot on her back. For the longest time, she had never cared what her hair looked like, as long as her armor was cleaned. Since then, she'd begrudgingly changed. She was more composed nowadays, but only because she was expected too. The change wasn't all bad, there were some positives to it. She wasn't convinced yet that the few positives outweighed the negatives of the extra time she spent on mere appearance. That was an extra ten or fifteen minutes she could have spent sharpening a knife or practicing her axe stroke!

She strode back into town, ignoring the lingering ache in her legs. Someone who really knew her could have noticed the slight hitch in her step, but it so very slight you had to watch really closely to even see a hint of it.

"Mrs. Astrid?" A small, lisping voice sounded just behind her knees. She twisted her torso, craning her neck to see under her arm miniature human. It was the youngest Gerhild Ingerman, Fishleg's youngest sister.

"Oh, hey. What did you want?" She started to kneel down, awkwardly standing back up when she realized she couldn't even squat down without sitting on Gerhild's head. Gerhild's mouth opened to say something, then snapped shut, grabbing onto her leg tightly with both arms.

"Uh… ok. That's… unexpected." Astrid reached down, grabbing her wrists, pulling lightly outwards to free herself from her sudden attachment. Gerhild hung on surprisingly strong, and she didn't really feel like prying her arms off.

"Gerhild, sweetie, I have to walk." She didn't respond, except for tightening her grip on Astrid's leg. Astrid took a short step forward, then slowly brought her other leg even with it, trying to let Gerhild keep up with her abbreviated movements. After maybe fifty feet of struggling on both ends, Astrid's frustration was starting to boil up. She stopped, swallowing the first comment that formed in her mind. And the second. And the third. Gerhild was just a child. But damnit, she was never this annoying as a child, why couldn't all kids be more self-reliant?

"Do you want to hold my hand? That'd be easier for both of us," she said. Her fiery anger had abated, and she didn't hate Gerhild or anything, she just got on her nerves sometimes. Gerhild didn't respond for a second, before slowly loosening, before her right arm reached up to where Astrid's hand was. Her left quickly followed suit, replacing her right. She looked briefly up at Astrid before burying her face into her leg. Astrid struggled to keep a straight face.

"C'mon, Gerhild, let's go find Fishlegs." The toddler followed along close at her side, her feet dragging slightly, making slight splashes in the puddles of water that scattered the ground.

Astrid couldn't help but notice the other women of, smirking, making subtle hand gestures in her direction, and suddenly making talking in whispers as she passed. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at them, though it would have been immensely satisfying. She could tell how they were all gossiping about how she was marching around with a child in tow. It obviously wasn't hers and everyone knew that, but they were talking about how her motherly urges were starting to kick in and how soon she was practicing for a child of her own. Since she knew how the rumor-mill worked around here, she was sure that come wash day, someone would ask her when she was expecting, since she was _obviously_ putting in extra practice since it would be a skill she'd need soon. She couldn't wait to see their crestfallen faces when she told them that she was still drinking the tea.

She turned down a nearby path, arriving at the Ingerman's longhouse. It looked exceedingly normal for a longhouse, though the inside was anything but. Whereas most houses had rows and rows of beds, once Fishlegs had become a grown man, he started adding a Fishlegsy flair to the place. That meant there were more scrolls and parchments in this this house than there were in the rest of the village—the Haddock house included. Though to be fair, the Ingerman house and the Haddock house were basically the only place where parchment existed. While Hiccup could use a surprising amount of paper on his sketches, notes, and plans, nothing could quite keep up with the pace that Fishlegs went through paper. He seemed to write whole books each day, as he recorded every facet of their lives on Berk, from day to day comings and goings to the finer records of trade, he had it all written down somewhere. Hiccup had appointed him the historian of sorts, and he took it very seriously.

Astrid rapped on the door thrice. She waited a few seconds as the sounds of hurried footsteps drew closer. The door popped open a crack and more fumbling was heard for a second or two as the door hung slightly open. The door was suddenly flung open by a jovial older woman. Astrid was slightly startled by both loud clang as the door slammed up against the wall and the unexpected volume of the lady who stood in before her, both arms and door wide open in a welcoming gesture.

"Astrid! Come in!" Astrid accepted the impending hug graciously. It was an inevitability with Mrs. Ingerman that at some point you were getting hugged. It wasn't that Astrid was opposed to showing affection, it's just that Mrs. Ingerman was so gregarious that sometimes she preferred to choose when she was going to be enveloped by her arms.

"Thanks, Mrs. Ingerman. I had a silent visitor, and I thought I'd bring her back," she said, gesturing down towards the toddler.

Mrs. Ingerman leaned to the left slightly to get a better look at the child who was partially concealed by Astrid's lean frame. "Thank you for bringing her back! I hardly know where she goes until later someone tells me there was a group of small children chasing chickens," she said with a laugh. It was hardly uncommon for Viking children to spend large portions of the day unsupervised, while the adults did more important things. Astrid shuffled inside, one arm still towing Gerhild.

"I'd expect to see Gerhild following you around a bit more often for the near future," Mrs. Ingerman said.

"Oh?"

"Oh yes, she's taken quite a liking to you. Seems like every day she says how she wants to grow up to be just like you." Gerhild suddenly buried her face in Astrid's leg, as if hiding her face could cover her embarrassment.

Astrid stifled her laughter. "Smart kid," she said with a grin.

"Isn't she? Smart for her age. Hopefully she those genes will pass on _to my grandchild that I should get soon_." Mrs. Ingerman shifted her head in the direction of the far end of the house, raising her voice to ensure the female silhouette leaving through the back door could her. It's a good thing Ruff didn't really know how to be embarrassed. She must have been busy too, since she didn't even respond. "Pro'lly going to get me one of those right now," Mrs. Ingerman said with a grin.

Astrid chuckled at the exchange. "So, how is it having another woman in the house now?" Astrid asked, sitting down on a nearby chair, leading Gerhild around the far side chair. She didn't release Astrid's hand so Astrid looped her arm over Gerhild's head, pulling her towards her side in a weird hug.

"It's been a nice break to be able to split up some of the work between more bodies. Of course, that's going to miscarry when she brings another body into the house. That will add more work for everybody, man and woman alike."

"But is she fitting in well? She's always been…" Astrid paused trying to find the correct word. "eccentric."

"No more than any of us! Do you see what Fishlegs has done to this place? If you had told me a few years ago that today my walls would be adorned from floor to cieling with trees would have been flattened into sheets, dried, and marked on with ash I would have said you were crazy! But here we are, and we love Fishlegs all the more for it. My boy and Roughnut are perfect for each other. Odd birds in their own way, but a good match."

Astrid gave a half nod to the side in agreement. They did work… somehow. Nobody really knew how they could stand each other's idiosyncrasies, but they sure did. Somehow what should have driven each other up the wall brought them together.

"Yeah, it's kind of a strange relationship the two of them had. When I first heard that 'Fishy,'" she said with air quotes, using Ruff's pet name for Fishlegs, "liked Ruff, I thought he was joking at first. When I heard she liked him back, I thought for sure she was just messing with him. I almost went off on her, Fishlegs is too nice of a guy to be that cruel to, but apparently she met it. Either that or she's going for the long con," she finished with a laugh. Noting a slightly concerned look on Mrs. Ingerman's face, Astrid added quickly "But she isn't, I know her well enough to know when she's up to something or not."

Seemingly satisfied, Mrs. Ingerman settled back into her chair. Normally she wouldn't take that kind of comment to heart. But then again, this was Ruffnut Thorst—Ingerman and she her reputation as a devious troublemaker was established well beyond the edges of Berk. "That girl is a touch crazy, I'll give you that," she said with a smile, a gleam of affection shimmering in her eyes.

"Ah, well she'll be in good company then," Astrid said.

Mrs. Ingerman chuckled at her remark before shifting the subject. "So, how's life as a Haddock?"

Astrid flushed a deep red. "Oh, well I'm not a Haddock yet. But I've been picking up more responsibilities anyway, and I'm a lot busier than I imagined."

"So how have you been keeping busy?" Mrs. Ingerman said, leaning forward with an eyebrow waggle.

"Not like that! Honestly, I just wasn't expecting all the additional responsibilities that would come with being the wife of the Chief."

"Like managing all the women and children?"

"I wish that was my only responsibility. I have a ton of them that I have to manage all at once. And on top of that a few weeks ago Hiccup had to leave to do some political stuff, so I was acting Chief in addition to all my normal duties. I thought I would die before I ever slept again," she said, her face glowering slightly.

"While I haven't ever been Chief's Wife, I certainly know what it's like to be suddenly thrust into adulthood and responsibility. I married my husband rather young, and suddenly I had to keep up with a whole household of responsibilities. If you ever need some help, please let me know," she said with an empathic touch on Astrid's forearm.

"Thanks, I appreciate it. I really do."

"Mom, are you torturing Astrid with tales of motherhood?" Fishlegs said, coming through the door.

"What? Me? Never!" Mrs. Ingerman said in mock anger. "She brought Gerhild back, so I thought I'd entertain her for a bit and let her rest her feet."

"Of course that's all you're doing," he said, hanging up his jacket on a peg that was embedded in the wall near the door. "Why don't you let the adults talk about village matters?" The combination of fighting Drago Bludvist and his recent marriage had bolstered his confidence significantly, to the point where he was initiating verbal sparring. There were still moments were his more natural timidity shone through but on a whole he had become more assertive.

"You're both half my age, what does that make me?" she said with a laugh.

Fishlegs touched his finger to his chin as if in thought. "Not sure, I'll have to look in the dictionary for synonyms of 'Ancient One.'"

"Oh ho ho!" Mrs. Ingerman said, shaking a finger at him. "You're acting awful uppity for a young'un who doesn't even cook his own meals!"

"I'm sure I'll manage."

"You'll be able to manage just fine for a couple months, I reckon," she said, gesturing towards his pudgy midsection.

"Mom!"

"Fine, I'll let you two have your 'grown up chat,' holler if you need me. I'll be fixing up some clothes," she said.

"Thanks Mom, but we'll be fine," Fishlegs said, watching as she disappeared to the back of the longhouse, taking Gerhild with her. "Sorry 'bout that," he said, finally addressing his visitor.

"Don't worry, it's fine," Astrid replied. "I was thoroughly entertained."

"Yeah, and for the time being she was content with mere chit chat before she started embarrassing me."

"Embarrassing you how? I already know everything about your childhood. Unless you mean to say there's some juicy secrets about your marriage I should know about," she said with a lascivious grin. When Fishlegs turned beet red in front of her, she knew she had struck close to home. "Don't worry Fishlegs, I'll just get Ruff to tell me."

Fishlegs sputtered for a few seconds before accepting his fate. He "Fine, is there anything you wanted to see me about?"

"Oh nothing in particular, I was just bringing Gerhild back. She kinda latched onto my leg in town, and I just thought I'd bring her home."

"Ah, thank you for that. Sometimes she just wanders off without letting anybody know where she is."

"Totally understandable," she assured him, rising to her feet as she concluded their conversation. She paused as she walked back to the door, her eye catching on some paper spread out on his wall. "What's this?" She gestured with a finger at the large sheet of paper on the wall, looking back at Fishlegs for an answer.

"That? It's not much."

Astrid glanced back at the paper that was fixed at each corner to the wall. Across the sheet was a strange assortment of writing. Horizontal and vertical lines crisscrossed many times, each intersection creating a box with which numbers had been scribbled in, erased, and written in again. There were a lot of numbers, all across the whole board, so many that she could barely keep track of it.

"Doesn't look like 'not much' to me, I can't even figure out what it's doing."

"It's just a pet project of mine, but it isn't finished yet, I'm still working on it."

"Well what have you done with it so far?"

"Well so far it isn't finished," he replied coolly.

"What's it supposed to do?" Astrid was starting to get annoyed.

"Well, this table here—"

"What table?"

"It's what I'm calling the groups of boxes."

"Because it's where I put things? I dunno, it's just easier to say than groups of boxes."

"Ok, but why table? You're not putting food on it, I assume."

"Do you want to talk about what this is or my naming convention?"

"Fine, fine, go ahead," Astrid conceded.

"Well this table," he paused, shooting Astrid a pointed look, waiting for her to interrupt. She made a 'go on' hand gesture. "This table is a record of how what Freezing To Death has been importing and exporting, and how much. This table here is for Outcast Island, and so on and so forth. My hope is that if I keep gathering this information, eventually we will know what our trade partners need before they need it, so we can adjust our prices accordingly, and make smarter trades. Or for places like Outcast Island, know when they are building up to enough supplies to house and feed an invading army."

"That would be pretty handy, if it works. How does it work?"

Fishlegs drew out his notepad, flipping open to a page that had a horde of numbers on it. "So first you start off here, and—"

"Forget it, I trust you. I'm sure it works." She caught a glimpse of a rather complicated drawing that she assumed detailed how it worked, and she realized that she didn't really care that deeply about this. Sure it would be great if it worked, but she didn't need to know why it worked to know that it worked. She was much more concerned with knowing how and when to swing an axe.

"You sure? It's really pretty simple."

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'm glad you're taking this historian thing to heart."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'd be bored to death if I was doing it, but you seem to really enjoy it."

"Well yeah, if we don't know what we did, then how will we know what we should do?"

"Intuition."

"That only gets you so far, I'm afraid."

"It's worked flawlessly for me."

"Flawlessly _so far._ "

"Fair enough," she admitted. Fishlegs did have a point, she couldn't rely on luck forever. "But if you spend too much time thinking about what you've done before, then you won't ever have enough time to think about what you should be doing right now. Take flying for instance, you can't be stuck in what you just did or you'll fly into a rock face."

"Ah, but even that is something that you need a record of what you've done before to know what you can and can't do, what you should and shouldn't do, what is good for this situation or that situation. All these things eventually become intuition for you, yes, but what about whoever comes after you? Why should they start from scratch when they can just start where you left off?"

"That's why I'm teaching the next generation."

"Even then, it's not so simple. Eventually people are going to wonder why they're doing these things instead of knowing why they're doing those things. If we record all of it now, then in the future nobody will wonder why, they'll be able to figure out the whole thing from what I'm writing down here. That's the beauty of being the Historian, Astrid, every time something new happens I get to record it so that people, long after we're dead, can learn from what we did and not repeat our mistakes!" Fishleg's voice rose in pitch when he got excited, and it was pretty hard for Astrid to not laugh at him. She suddenly realized she had an itch on her nose, and the laughter was suppressed.

"Yeah, I can see why that would be handy."

"You should get Hiccup to write down more about what he learned about riding Toothless for you," Fishlegs said, handing her some blank pages. She declined.

"He has a bunch of paper at the house already, if he wants to write it down, then he will. Though admittedly most of the paper goes into designs, not writing."

"Ah ha, see how useful this could be right now? If he had written all of what he had learned down, then you and Toothless could have been saved some growing pains."

"Yeah, maybe. Still I think that a lot of flight is instinct and that I just needed some practice."

"See that's what you say, but just imagine if you didn't have to risk an leaving an eyeball on a cliff face somewhere because you don't have all the knowledge about how to operate that damned pedal that you need?"

"Well I haven't found anything I couldn't figure out after a time or two."

"So far."

"I guess technically, that's true. But it'll remain true because there's only a few positions, so it's not that hard to learn."

"A few positions can lead to a significantly greater number of combinations."

"I'll tell you what, if you ever learn to ride Toothless, you can write it all down." Fishlegs seemed to brighten up at this. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he had already begun planning something. More than likely, it would be some sort of lengthy document detailing every aspect about dragon flight.

"If you want to, I'm about to go check on the guard posts, make sure they're doing the right thing. Do you want to come and—" she paused trying to think of the right word. "—do your historian thing?"

"Document? Transcribe? Record?"

"Yeah, one of those."

"Unfortunately no, I have to go the docks to record a trade agreement."

"Sounds thrilling," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Oh, it is!" Fishlegs was apparently completely ignored her remarks or chose to take them as serious.

"Well, I'll let you get back to that, while I'll do m—y stuff," she choked a little bit, nearly saying 'more important stuff,' but was able to pull her words back into some relatively neutral phrasing.

"Alright, later!" He said cheerily, showing her to the door. Once back outside, she breathed a sigh of relief. Fishlegs was a gentle soul, one of those people who wouldn't hurt a fly even if it was a choice between him or the fly. Astrid on the other hand was a wild soul, one prone to rather abrasive comments. Somehow, while for most people this was not an issue, she really had to watch what she said around Fishlegs. What she thought was a gentle ribbing would make turtle up and avoid her for weeks at a time. Eventually, she'd have to track him down and figure out what specifically she had said and apologize for it. To give him credit, he had gotten more assertive since Drago, but she was wasn't certain if his skin was any thicker.

Astrid glanced at the building one last time before turning and walking away. Her path took her back through the town and towards her house. Without a child in one arm, there were a lot less significant glances and hushed tones directed at her, but there was still a few. She hoped that eventually those would peter out and she could get back to having people just talk to her like… her. Now it seemed like there was always an undercurrent of 'Gotta be careful around the Chief's Wife' but that never used to be there. Granted, she wasn't the Chief's Wife until recently, so it hadn't been there for a good reason. But she was still Astrid. There was no reason people couldn't talk to her like they always had. Admittedly she had more power now to fix problems, but she was a tough girl, she knew when she should wield her authority versus when she needed to wield her axe.

Stormfly was waiting for her at the steps to their house, with the riding gear laying on the ground beside her. Astrid smiled, reaching down to grab the saddle. Stormfly was smart—nowhere near as smart as Toothless—but still damn smart for a dragon, and she knew exactly what time it was. Every day at this time they would go fly around the island for a bit. Some days it was a leisurely cruise, some days it was aerobatics practice. Today, she was going out to check on various guard posts throughout the island, and because she knew she'd inevitably get bored, there would be some loops, twists, and dives thrown in just for fun. As she finished buckling the last strap, a brilliantly blue neck wrapped around her in a pseudo dragon hug. Astrid reached up, stroking Stormfly's neck as Stormfly preened Astrid's hair.

"I'm anxious to get flying too, girl." She changed her gentle, soothing stroking motion to a light double pat, before half jumping half pulling herself up on top of her winged friend. She hurtled upwards as soon as she had settled into her saddle, a blue and yellow streak that quickly faded into the blue sky marred only by dotted white clouds.

Her rapid ascent had startled her slightly, making her grin as she recalled her first flight and Toothless' heartstopping climb, even after Hiccup had assured her that they were going down to the ground. She remembered very vividly her heart pounding harder than it ever had before, accompanied by the loudest yell she could possibly muster. She couldn't figure out if she was more angry or more terrified on the way up. On the way down, it was definitely all terror, pure absolute terror.

Stormfly twisted her body, beginning a spiraling dive towards the ground. The wind bit at her face, ripping her shout from her lips to let it trail behind them like an exuberant banner through the sky as they went through a sequence of loops and spins. Stormfly's wings suddenly snapped open an arm's length above the trees, and the duo mirrored the ebb and flow of the hills as close as they could get without running into a stray branch. They hurtled over the top of one hill to suddenly turn and dive as they entered a new valley. Astrid nudged Stormfly with her knee, and her dragon responded quickly. Stormfly tucked her wings, flipping over and dropping rapidly. A second later, her wings re-emerged, catching the wind like a sail, sharply changing their flight path. She sped behind a waterfall, pulling up on the far side into a lazy arc that sailed high into the sky. Astrid laughed happily, wiping the spray of the waterfall off of her face that had nearly soaked her completely.

"Oh that was fun!" Astrid grinned, cupping one arm in her other hand, running it down the length quickly to send the excess water flinging off into the empty space. "I wish we could do that all day!"

Stormfly craned her neck, looking back at her rider and squawking.

"Yeah, I know."

Stormfly chirped a few sentences back at her.

"Yes, of course we have to! That's part of my job, I know it sucks. But hey, we're getting that day off in a week or so. I know I'm going to spend most of it with Hiccup, but whatever I don't I'll spend it with you and we can go flying. Or exploring. Or hunting. Or training."

Another squawk from Stormfly interrupted the list of possibilities that Astrid was rattling off.

"Ok, no training. Just something fun. Just some leisurely flying then."

Stormfly babbled in agreement, and begrudgingly angled towards one of the guard posts. Among Astrid's responsibilities was initial defense of Berk. She was in charge of the exterior guard, the Vikings who would sit in the tall rock structures and watch for approaching enemy ships, as well as the running the last line of defense, the island guards themselves. And run them she did. Since she had taken charge, vigilance had surged by 248%, and complaints about having to do guard shifts had risen by 114% (thanks Fishlegs). Part of what she did was conduct a check every evening on two of the eight exterior guard posts, which was where most of the complaints came from. When people actually did their job, there was no issue. However, most of the time people didn't actually do what they were supposed to, and as such got an earful from Astrid. Plus, as future wife of the Chief, people were more or less obligated to do what she wanted them to do.

The two coasted in towards the first outpost they were going to be checking tonight, immediately noting that something was awry. She—and everybody else—knew what the standard was. There were three people at each post, and at least one of them had to be outside to watch. The other two could be in the cave that had been long ago been hollowed into the face of each of the pillars as a shelter from the elements. Currently, she could already see that there was nobody outside. If there was nobody outside, she could only imagine what was happening inside. They probably didn't have the correct amount of arrows or supplies in there or some other bullshit. Or maybe they were sitting inside smoking when they should have been outside working. Ooh boy that would get her heated. Stormfly landed softly by the lip of the cave, letting her passenger off before turning to entertain herself by knocking stones off the edge of the cliff into the water.

Astrid stepped closer to the door, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she had just caught them during a shift change. She stepped quietly forward, giving them a few extra seconds to emerge, ready for shift. As she neared the entrance, she could smell the distinct scent of burning dried herbs. She ducked inside in one quick, smooth motion.

Three pairs of eyes start at her, all suddenly growing wider. A moderate fire was built up between them, and a pipe was in the hands of the furthest one. A sudden burst of fear could be felt in the room. Astrid glared at each of them, moving past them silently. She moved to the racks at the back of the cave. She pulled an arrow out of a quiver, examining it. A second later, she slid it back into place. A quick count revealed that the quiver was two short of the required thirty arrows. She pushed it aside, looking at the carefully balanced stack of wood at the rear of the cave. The pile, built in case there needed to be a signal fire, was ingenious in its simple construction. Upon lighting, the logs would burn rapidly, sending a roaring flame upward to where it would erupt out the back, where another stack of would waited, ready to be lit. The combination of the sound of the burst of flame and the light from the fire at the rear of the stone would definitely alert someone at Berk. At least, it would have, had there been any wood left to ignite. Her gaze shifted backwards to the small fire that warmed the trio sat, its light flickering against the walls of the cave. She flexed her hand, slowly unclenching her fist. A few seconds later she spoke calmly.

"Which one of you is in charge of this shift?" The two subordinates immediately ratted out their superior with pointed fingers.

Astrid gestured to the two subordinates and towards the door. "You two, out. I don't want there to be any witnesses." Her eyes narrowed dangerously. The two youngish Vikings scrambled for the door, eager to escape her impending wrath.

"Now Ms. Hofferson, I can explain—" the man started to stutter. She was having none of it.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" She thundered, her voice immediately overpowering his meek attempts at deflecting the impending storm. "I want to know right goddamn now how you became so monumentally fucking stupid!"

"Well I"

"Please finish that fucking sentence so that when your tongue realizes how stupid you sound it will wrap around your own neck and end your miserable existence, doing all of Viking-kind a service."

The man's mouth opened, but no sound came out. He was still trying to figure out if she wanted him to finish the sentence. How would his tongue strangle him? It wasn't nearly long enough.

"Seriously you're fucking stupid. What's your job, dumbass?"

"Guard?"

"That's part of it fuckwit. Keep going."

"Defend?"

"Ho ho, we've got a real thinker here. Let's go, come on. Can he go three for three?"

"Warn Berk?"

"Give the man a prize, he's on fire! Or rather, he would be, if there was any fucking wood in here I could use to set him ablaze!"

"What was that about wood?" It was rather fortunate that the man was still wearing his helm, as a smoldering log from the fire was split over his head.

"That wood, you fucktard. The wood that was supposed to be used to signal back to the Berk in the case of an emergency, the wood you burned for warmth. Tell me genius, how were you planning on alerting Berk?"

"We can yell pretty loud."

Something must have flipped in her brain, because the sentences that followed were a mismatched hodgepodge of expletives and vulgarities that more or less amounted to her insulting his family line, likening them to the unwanted bastard children of village idiots and whores. Eventually, she decided she should move onto her second point.

She straightened up, realizing that she had been leaning down over him, gesturing savagely with her palm bladed like a knife. With that vent out of her system for a moment, she took a deep breath, calming herself down.

"Alright, regarding defense. What do you have for defense?"

"Arrows."

She had to snap her mouth shut to keep herself from saying something insultingly patronizing. "Yes, that's correct. How many?"

"Thirty."

"Are you fucking sure? Because I'm pretty sure there aren't. Can you count at all?" What little patience she had managed to regain was gone again.

"… yes?"

"Can you? That didn't sound like an answer to me, that sounded like a question. I'll tell you what, how 'bout I stab them into you, left leg for odd numbers right leg for even numbers, and you tell me how many there are. Does that sound good?"

"Yes, uhh, no, um yes. No!"

She stormed over to the quiver hung. "You better fucking know how many arrows you have, this shit is your life blood on the battlefield. She was tempted to dump them out on the floor, but that wouldn't solve anything, so she settled for punching the side of the quiver, causing it to rock back and forth wildly.

The man nodded nervously.

"Last one, guard. If you're all in here, how well do you think you're guarding Berk?"

"Not well?"

"Hell fucking no, not well at all. One of you fucks better be on guard at all times."

He nodded vigorously in return.

"It took me all of four seconds to find those three things wrong here, and I guarantee if I spend a minute or two longer I'll find something else. You better unfuck yourself right goddamn now or so help me Thor I'll put my boot so far up your ass you'll be tasting leather for a week. Got that?"

Another vigorous nod.

"Alright. I'll be back in a couple hours. This shit better be fixed."

"Yes Ma'am." Astrid ducked back outside the cave, staring at the two wide-eyed faces of the younger Vikings. She gestured at them and back to the cave she had just emerged from. The two scrambled inside and away from her. Evidently her words could be heard just fine from outside.

Astrid sighed, walking back to where Stormfly sat, having grown tired of watching rocks splash into the ocean below. She quickly jumped up on top of her back. Stormfly leaned forward, falling off the cliff face, using her wings to catch them and launch them up towards the blue sky. Hopefully the next outpost wasn't as fucked up.


	4. Chapter 4: Best Laid Plans

Chapter 4: Best Laid Plans

Agilulf crept threw the thick underbrush of the woods, keeping slight tension on the bow string as he stalked his prey. He moved smoothly through the foliage, parting the branches and shrubs cleanly as he moved silently forwards. Every single one of his senses flooded him with information. He felt the slight shift in the breeze on his skin, telling him he needed to change his path to stay downwind. He heard birds suddenly stop chirping above him, telling him to slow his movements to where they were nearly imperceptible. He smelt the scent of the forest, telling him where he should move in his hunt. He could taste the sweat and dirt in his mouth, telling him he needed to be more careful with how he exerted himself. Lastly, he saw the brownish jittery movements of the deer that he was hunting down.

He could feel the squelch between his toes as he stepped down again, the dew had long since soaked through his shoes, leaving a small puddle where his feet rested. Pushing the minor discomfort from his mind, he eased his body in a downward swooping motion, making little noise and putting him that much closer to his prey. All he had to do now was close the distance so that a bow less powerful than his could make the shot.

Agilulf glanced backwards at his children, who were following his every footstep. He had to refrain from smiling. Despite the fact that they'd grown up in the woods, anyone could tell from the way they moved that they were not experienced hunters. No matter, this was what he was here for, to teach them. Teach them how to hunt, how to fight, how to lead. All of these things were crucial skills in their world. Especially for his children, being royal blood, they would have more expected of them than any other.

He looked back at his son and daughter, waiting until he had gotten the attention of both of them. With a subtle gesture from his arm, he motioned them closer. The two stepped up next to him, almost as quiet as he was.

"Do you see the deer?" He whispered. The two nodded.

"Ok, here's what we will do next. We're going to keep quiet and remain unseen. We need to stay downwind at all costs. When I give the word, you will both fire at the same time. Follow me." After his brief instructions, he took another step, careful to move the branches deliberately so they wouldn't sway and smack against a tree.

He glanced behind him periodically to watch what his kids were doing. They were doing alright. Not terrible, but not great either. Overall, he'd say they were doing about as well as you'd expect from your first hunt. They trio slunk through the woods, tailing the deer as they meandered lazily through the forest, oblivious to the threat that lurked behind them. Agilulf finally deemed that they were close enough for his kids' small bows to do sufficient damage.

He paused, half crouched behind a thick tree. With tilt of the head and a flick of the finger, he told his children to go behind a specific bush. The two clumsily moved forward, an errant thump of a foot on the ground caused one of the deer to raise its head. He held his hand up, causing them to freeze in place. After a few tense moments, he beckoned them forwards… slower this time.

Agilulf peered around the tree, double checking to see if the deer had moved. He slowly raised his right hand, signaling them to draw their strings back. The closest deer shifted, facing its behind towards the hunters as it reached for newer, more succulent leaves. Agilulf paused, waiting to see if the deer would offer a more favorable target.

"Patience," he murmured to himself. "Must have patience." The deer bolted. Agilulf dropped his hand, and the arrows whirled harmlessly past the deer. All of the deer that had been there had run off into the forest, speeding away at a pace that they could never reach.

"What happened?" His daughter said disappointedly.

"Hush." He made a sweeping gesture that warned them not to make a sound. The sounds of the forest resumed. The wind rustled the trees slightly, birds chirped merrily, the occasional rustle of the bushes from a jackrabbit. There was the faint sound of dripping where dew had built up a little too much and fell from leaf to leaf. If you listened hard enough, you could hear the heartbeat of the forest as it brimmed with life. Beneath the pulse, there was something else. Something decidedly unnatural.

Footsteps, and a lot of them.

Agilulf took off through the forest, staying always behind the trees as he rushed forward. Every step was calculated as he kept himself always within arm's reach of something that would stop an arrow, and yet he sprinted as fast as his kids could keep up. His minions did their level best to keep up, but even with their youthful energy they struggled to maintain the pace he set with his endurance.

The kids stopped nearly tripped over each other when Agilulf pulled up sharply. Just through the next set of bushes and down a small hill was a well known and frequently traveled trail. Through the branches and brambles, a host of men could be seen, walking with seeming careless abandon. Armed to the teeth and wearing an assortment of leather and metal armor, they carried all the markings of a fearless warband, though usually they wouldn't travel on roads where they could be easily seen, they'd carve their own path through the forest so there would be less of a warning when they finally struck.

Agilulf peered through the bushes for a second, quickly weighing the outcomes of his actions. He reared up, firing an arrow. It whistled through the air, embedding half its shaft in the ground beneath the man up front.

"Stop! Why do you arrive uninvited on Levoni ground so heavily armed?"

The man at the front held up a hand, smiling widely as he addressed his own men.

"It's alright, just another example of Levoni accuracy!" This was met with a howl of laughter. "Who's that, is that Agilulf I see?"

"Raban?" Agilulf lowered the bow slightly, looking at the man who was older than he remembered, covered in war garb.

"Who else? Come here!"

Agilulf didn't move. He stared at Raban, glancing periodically at the horde of fighters he had brought with him. Why was the Chief of the Vargionnes here with what looked like every warrior in his tribe? Surely the recent messenger the Vargionnes had sent—the one who was so easily offended—couldn't have been this upset.

"Why do you come here, armed for war?"

"Did not my messenger reach you?"

"He arrived in town, and immediately drank himself to sleep at my expense."

"Ha, what a foolhardy man. War is upon us Agilulf, and the whole region must band together if we want to survive."

Agilulf sat at the head of the table in his hall, flanked on both sides by representatives of different tribes. Of course the Vargionnes held the seat of honor to his right. Down the left side sat representatives from the Alfheahs and the Gervans, while the right side had only the Chlodovechs after the Vargionnes. He still wasn't happy that they had all congregated at his village essentially unannounced, but he begrudgingly admitted it made sense. His village wasn't the closest to the enemy, but offered the best terrain from which they could attack to the south.

He drummed his fingers against the table impatiently. He was a man of action, not a man of politics. Such matters bored him, though he did recognize their value. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that he wasn't a fool he would have evicted these 'guests' a while ago. And this was only the beginning, it had only been five days since Raban had first called for a meeting, these three just happened to be both relatively close and swift riders. He expected to have leaders from another five clans by the close of next week under his roof. Now the unexpected burden of food was one thing, but having to deal with niceties and pretend friendship for… at least a month he expected… would tax him immensely.

His wife brought out a plate of food for the men to eat while they discussed what they would be doing soon. He flashed Auda a smile, trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince her that everything was fine. She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, squeezing it briefly before retreating. As she left, his smile returned to its previous scowl, his eyes fixed on the table before him. He absentmindedly traced shapes on the table with his finger, his mind travelling southward to where an invading army attacked.

Rome.

Everyone knew the name. An undefeatable army that traveled across the land, devouring all that stood in their way. Small men who fought shoulder to shoulder with shields almost as large as their own men. It seemed like such a strange concept. If you're that close, how do you expect to wield a weapon effectively? How can you strike with such an unwieldy shield? Any such force should have spread out to occupy the terrain, and yet they walked through valleys and repulsed attack after attack from enemies above them and on their flanks. And they would be at his own village probably before the end of summer, most definitely by the time they would have to turn around to avoid the harsh winter months. They were coming, and he had to be ready. They had to be ready.

"Hah! His mind is elsewhere, Raban!" The rowdy and surprisingly loud voice of the shortest among them stirred him from his thoughts. Hartmut, the Chief of the Alfheahs shook a finger at the Vargionne.

"You've gotten his attention now, Hartmut. Well Agilulf, are you for or against it?"

"For or against what?"

"Hartmut wants to ride out and take the fight to the Roman Legion."

"That's a fucking terrible idea," Agilulf said flatly. Hartmut was a brave fighter, and no man doubted his honor or bravery. He was never counted amongst the most wise, however.

"No, you two are the idiots here, we have to show them our teeth! Show them we aren't afraid of their soldiers or their horseman or anything they may throw at us, because we are better fighters!" Hartmut slammed his fist on the table to emphasize his point.

"They have repulsed every attack anyone has ever thrown at them, how would that be any different?"

"Because they've never fought us before!"

"I wonder how many other Chief's have said the same exact words," Agilulf said dryly.

"Well surely you don't want us to sit here and wait, have us sit in your village while they throw rocks the size of men at your buildings and kill all your people without so much as an attempt to return the favor?"

"No, of course not."

"You'd rather surrender to them than fight like a man, eh?" Hartmut rose to his feet, his hand straying to his belt.

"Sit down Hartmut, are you mad?" Ingulf the Chlodovech said incredulously. "Do you seriously think that Raban and Agilulf is bringing everyone here to ask us to surrender?"

Hartmut harrumphed. He liked to reinforce his image that he was a bold, brave warrior. He was never thought of as the brightest, but as long as nobody thought he was a bitch nobody would fuck with him, and that suited him just fine.

"Probably not," he said, returning to his seat. Raban fumed at this blatant show of disrespect, but said nothing. It wasn't his place, he wasn't in charge of the meeting. Had this meeting taken place in his own territory, it would have been different. However, this wasn't his land or his hall, it was Agilulf's. Agilulf was relatively nonplussed. He worked with Hartmut a lot more than Raban did, and was very familiar with his antics.

"I have been thinking about it," Agilulf started, addressing Hartmut's original question. "And there are not many different things to do. We can't beat them in a normal attack, they're far too strong for that. We can't sit here and wait either. They may not have fought us before, but they've fought others like us before. Ingulf, how far can your boats reach?"

"Far enough, why?" The Chlodovech's were known throughout the region for their mastery of the waterways. Situated right next to a large river, they had become a sort of hub of trade for the region. They had trade partners far in each direction, and as such had learned the art of boatmaking from masters from across the land. They had developed a style of boats uniquely their own that performed exceptionally well in controlling all possible ways to access their port. Though not stable enough to last on the open sea, for what they were designed for they were perfect.

"We need warriors of different types. Send messengers to the norsemen, they are fierce fighters, and as long as we offer them the plunder of the Roman Legion, they'll come. Also send a boat to the east, and get help from them as well, the quicker the better. We need as many and as varied of a force as we can get."

"Fuck that, we don't need any filthy northerners!" Hartmut interjected. All had a say in what was to come, as none had lordship over the other. "They are nothing more than man and animal hybrids that fuck in the mud and sleep in filth. I want nothing to do with them."

"We need more soldiers," Agilulf said plainly, redirecting his gaze to the hotheaded man.

"I don't care, we can do it without their so called 'help.'"

"If we gather every single soul from our tribes, and those of the tribes who have yet to arrive, we still have slightly more than half the strength of their army. We need more soldiers, where do we get them?"

"I don't know, we could just cut down trees and roll them at the enemy, that could kill a few."

Agilulf started to let out a witty retort, but his words died on his lips. His eyebrows scrunched up, creating shadowy valleys on his forehead.

"What are you thinking Agilulf?"

"I think that's a pretty good plan, but we'll still need those extra swords. Ingulf, you focus on that. Raban, your people and mine will focus on preparing the area to kill the Romans. Hartmut, you will train all others who come in to fight against the Romans."

"We can do that! Most other clans are soft!" Hartmut said with a wicked grin. Before anyone could protest his statement, Agilulf ended the meeting abruptly.

"Raban, come with me, we need to work out the details of the plan."

The two walked outside together, leaving the hall behind them in disarray. Hartmut was loudly proclaiming how much the other clans could only hope to live up to his standards, and the situation was rapidly progressing into a two versus one fistfight, which Hartmut would no doubt emerge victorious from. He was a loudmouth, reckless, and abrasive, but he was a damn good fighter.

The evening air embraced the chiefs as they walked towards a nearby ridge to survey the landscape, to plan for their impending fight. He brought Raban with him for a few reasons. Firstly, an extra set of eyes and another brain to bounce ideas off of is never a bad idea. Second, in comparison to the other chiefs that were in attendance, Raban was the most tactically minded. Hartmut was a fighter, not a tactician. Ingulf was neither, he fought when he had to but mostly he just managed commerce—which is why he was also much richer than the rest of them. Finally, because he had too. As far as people go he didn't hate Raban, but he didn't like them either. He thought they bullied their way into positions and places not because they deserved to be there but because they were had the biggest army. In his opinion he was more tactically sound with his use of soldiers than Raban, and Hartmut's fighters were better, but sometimes in drawn out fights, size does matter.

"You weren't serious about the trees, were you?" Raban's question drew Agilulf out of his thoughts.

"The trees? Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's ridiculous."

"It is, but light it on fire and make sure that the stumps of branches are sharpened into spikes and you've got a pretty good way to disrupt the Roman lines."

"That's… surprisingly not terrible."

"And it came from Hartmut, too," Agilulf said with a laugh.

"Don't remind me." Agilulf and Hartmut got along well. They recognized each other's strengths, and worked around them. Raban and Hartmut… not so much. Mutually antagonistic would be the nicest way to describe it. Outright hatred might be too far, but they kept their relationship non-violent—a remarkable amount of restraint on Hartmut's part.

"So where would you put these trees of yours?" Raban asked.

"You mean Hartmut's trees?" A glint of mirth appeared in Agilulf's eyes. It was met with a scowl, one that clearly implied that Raban refused to credit Hartmut for a good idea.

Agilulf grabbed a fallen stick, pushing some of the leaves and bits of brush aside, leaving a patch of bare dirt, still mostly visible in the orange light of the approaching dusk. He grabbed a pinecone to act as his makeshift village, his village. Using his stick, he dug into the ground, tearing through the small roots in order to better match the patch of ground with the surrounding terrain. A large, open valley emerged in the dirt before them, with ridgelines pushing up. He scratched out the terrain in front of them as well as what lay beyond the ridges, beyond where they could see. Agilulf knew the hills by heart, so it was not even a challenge for him. Raban however was completely unfamiliar with the terrain, and needed as much reference as he could get.

Tiny branches he snapped off of nearby shrubs to act as trees, placing two or three 'trees' in a row to show a forested area. He took some twigs and lay them down in a row, starting between two of the ridgelines and trailing down into the valley in the same path that a creek took. He took some rocks, making lines along the ridges that surrounded the valley. Finally, he placed larger, broken roots at the base of the valley in place of the Roman Legion's advancing lines.

"There," he said, standing up to observe his work after a few minutes. He looked up at Raban expectantly.

"There what?"

"That's the plan," he said matter-of-factly.

"What's the plan?" See this is why Agilulf wasn't such a big fan of Raban. He thought himself so important, so crucial in every political meeting, but he fell so far short when he was needed most.

"This is this valley," he said, pointing with his stick to the map on the ground and then at the terrain itself. "Here's the village, here's the ridge we are on, there's that ridge, there's the valley itself, over here is a creek with a bit of a marsh, and beyond that hill is another hill."

"Yeah, I see that."

"Well we know the Romans are coming from the south, right?"

"Yes."

"And what do they like to do?"

"Use their better formations, with their soldiers on horseback, and their weapons that are manned by a team of three or four to beat us to death."

"So what are we not going to let them do?"

"That?"

"Yes. So down here we have this marsh. We have a month or two left before they get here, that's plenty of time to flood that area so they can't get horses through there, leaving only this side," he gestured towards a steep set of hills. "Which is steep, rocky, and treacherous. Not ideal for horses. If we put one unit on here, they should be able to deal with any Romans on horseback, especially if we give them spears."

"What about the trees?"

"I'm glad you asked. Here," he gestured to the map again, "is the narrowest point of the valley. This is where we will roll the trees down onto them. Disorient them. Kill them. That's when we will be beginning our attack."

"We rush down and kill them all!"

"Not exactly. For the majority of the time, we'll be up in the high ground, raining arrows down upon the enemy. This is where we need the men from the northern tribes. They're ferocious fighters but more importantly, they haven't fought the Romans yet. Which means the Romans won't know how to fight them. Once the trees hit the lines, they'll be in disarray. That's when the Norsemen will break apart what's left of their line, and only then can we use your and my forces to break them apart and kill the whole lot of them." He stabbed his tree stick into the ground for good measure. Raban looked down at the crude map, nodding slightly.

"I like it."

"Thank you."

"It still needs a few tweaks though."

Of course he would want to make changes, Agilulf thought. "Sure, no plan is perfect."

"Let's get started."

Agilulf relished the glowing warmth of the halls of war, the forge. Here, strong craftsmen used a combination of technique and willpower to shape metal to their own will. Each and every piece of metal came in with its own mind, its own way of behaving. It was the work of the smith to force the metal into his way of thinking, into his vision. Slowly but surely, swords emerged from the unfathomably hot furnace to bathe in nearby cold water, singing about how refreshed they felt. From there they moved over to a grinder, where another man honed each edge to a fine point, ready to cut the life from a man.

But swords were hardly the only thing they crafted. Weapons of every variety emerged from these very rooms. Since every tribe donated one or two of their smiths, whole clans could be outfitted rapidly. A smallish tribe—dedicated to holding the rocky terrain from the roman horses—was outfitted with brand new pikes, as well as refurbishing their pre-existing swords. Outfitted with their new and renewed gear, they were a force to be reckoned with, easily capable of defeating the Roman attackers.

Not to forget arrows. Of course every man had a set of arrows that they used for hunting. Now, every damn person had a whole quiver of arrows in reserve, and the noted marksmen had even more. Somehow, after the mass of swords, javelins, pikes, axes, and other miscellaneous weaponry and armor created, they were able to scrounge enough metal to mass produce arrows. This was wholly made capable because of Ingulf's rather incredible ability to leverage the waterways exactly how he needed to get whatever he desired. In this case, it was mass quantities of metal.

Agilulf watched one the masters at work. Sparks arced away from the metal in a short lived brilliant orange flash, lighting up the clothing of the craftsman, causing shadows to dance wildly in the crevices of the fabric. He thumbed his own blade, recently sharpened by the same man. His thumb traced down from the center of the blade towards the edge, noting how smooth the blade felt. Instead of dropping off bluntly, it just faded into nothingness as the blade narrowed to a deceptively keen edge.

He gave the craftsman a pat on the shoulder, who in turn frowned deeply at him for disrupting his work. He walked past other smiths, all equally engrossed in their work. Hammers clanged against metal, sending reverberations throughout the forge. Other craftsmen huddled in corners, fitting armor together or piecing shafts on weapons. Fewer still were spent their time fitting leather to where it was needed. Grips, fastenings for armor, and other assorted odds and ends all received their due diligence. Satisfied that proper progress was being made, he emerged from the building, another type of clashing metal filling his ears. Hartmut was putting people through their paces as he ran another group of people through his hellish training program.

"Alright, defense against a downwards strike! Team B is now the aggressor against Team A, and begin!"

The row of men closer to him took a step towards their opponents wearily. Originally, each 'class' of people lasted five days, during which Hartmut subjected them to near tyrannically harsh treatment. Sleep was a luxury long forgotten. Hunger and exhaustion plagued their every movement. Small meals came twice a day, but it was nothing compared to their constant sparring and incessant exertion that they put forth. Breaks in sparring occurred infrequently, and only when necessary like when it was time for food, water, or time for them to go on a run through the woods with their armor on to build endurance. However with the Romans expected to arrive soon, Agilulf had shortened their training camps to a mere day and a half… enough for sparring, one overnight run, and another short session of sparring.

Two months. It had been two months since they had started planning, and they had come quite a long ways. They had completed what they had initially set out to do, and turned their attention to ways they could even further improve their chances of victory. They built barricades along the hilltops to give their archers cover not already given to them by the terrain. They had flooded an additional river to ensure that the Romans turned into the valley they needed them to be in. Finally, they had created some additional rolling instruments to cast at the Roman lines when the time came.

In the last two months they had received help from everyone and everyone they had sent aid to, none wanted to deal with a Roman incursion. The Norsemen had even promised 300 of their finest fighters, due to arrive any day now. He had assumed they would have arrived a few days ago, but evidently their travel had been slowed by some unforeseen barrier.

Agilulf turned back to the sparring that took place before him. It was definitely slower than it was when it started, but after Hartmut's course, even the relatively peaceful tribes with far less skilled warriors had achieved pretty well coming out of his training. Even the most skilled got something out of it. A new step, a new technique, a new counter, every scrap of information that people could glean from it they did. They all knew that their lives depended on it very shortly.

Small movements caught the corner of his eye. Standing off to the side, was is his son Megenfrid. He held a smaller, eight year-old boy sized wooden sword. He mimicked what the men were doing as best as he could, doing his best to account for his shorter stature. He stretched as high as he could, stepping up on his toes for the overhead defensive block. He wanted to get the sword to the same height that they held it, but his youth prevented him from doing so. For a second he used his other arm to mimic an enemy sword striking his from above. He shunted the 'blow' off to the side, stepping agilely to his right. Using his momentum, he made a series of quick attacks, finishing with a forward thrust that had as much force as his slight frame could generate. He overextended, that was for sure. But he was showing great enthusiasm, and Agilulf expected that he'd mold him into a great warrior one day, he thought with a slight smile and a touch of pride. If only Megenfrid could put this much effort into his chores as he did dawdling and shadowboxing.

"Excuse me, sir," he heard a voice behind him.

"Yes?" he said, turning around.

"Chief Raban wishes to see you at the defenses."

Agilulf gave him a silent half nod, and proceeded to walk past him. He had tired of Raban's "summonings" a long time ago. And yet the longer he stayed, the more he didn't dare irritate the man. They needed all the help they could get, and Raban's tribe still was the largest single chunk of manpower they had.

He fumed to himself as he walked. Raban wants this, and Raban wants that. He was tired of walking this tightrope of keeping Raban happy and not bending over backwards to his wishes. He tried to be as reasonable as possible, taking care of things that were irritating but not ridiculous requests. However, there were some requests he just couldn't tolerate. For example, this was the last time that Raban would 'summon' him. He'd take him to the side and give him a piece of his mind about how unprofessional it was for him, to be summoned by another chief on his own territory. Granted these times were few and far between, but it still shouldn't have been happening ever.

He strode out to the one of the spiky, wooden walls that the Vargionnes had made. Given their greater numbers, they had been set to use constructing fortifications and doing the bulk of the manual labor. They had initially objected, but since they were eating a significant chunk of the Levoni food stores, they shut up pretty quick when threatened with both continuing construction and finding their own food at the same time.

"Agilulf, come quickly!" Raban said in an urgent tone. Something about the way he spoke made Agilulf hold his tongue momentarily. Maybe if it was important he'd hold off on lecturing Raban. Agilulf glanced around only then noticing what was missing.

Joviality. There was none to be found anywhere. Usually there would be bonfires, people drinking ale and generally enjoying the night off, while other people were forward acting as scouts to alert them in case of a Roman attack. There were some smoldering fires that provided heat, but no infernos where people would sit around and tell stories, sing songs, or have a good time. There was no laughter. In fact, there were precious few people sitting down at all, most of them were at the wall staring into the valley beyond. Mirth and good spirits were replaced with a dull, hardened expression and a palpable resolve.

Agilulf's eyes followed the direction that Raban pointed. Far out into the valley, orange stars twinkled in the fading dusk. A whole sky of stars condensed into that valley, glinting and flickering as the fires necessary to feed a whole army of Romans shining gaily up at them. Agilulf glanced around at the men at the wall. Hushed voices murmured back and forth, none daring to say the forbidden R word.

"Romans," Agilulf said simply.

"The scouts reported it just as the sun reached the trees. By the time you got here, they had lit fires. I doubt they will attack tonight, but tomorrow or the day after…" Raban's voice trailed off. He himself was an accomplished fighter, but the task before them was daunting for even the most seasoned veteran and his nerves were betrayed by his voice.

"Break out the best of the food we have left. Tonight, we dine well. They will come tomorrow," he said. He quickly turned on his heel.

"And where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to spend tonight with my family," he cast over his shoulder, not even bothering to look back.

He crossed the town quicker than he thought he would. Either he was walking exceptionally fast, or he was completely oblivious to everything around him. Maybe both. It seemed like he opened the door to his house before he could even finish the thought 'the romans are here.'

He stood in the doorway, glancing around quickly to see where his children were. Roza was helping her mother with dinner, and Megenfrid was nearby, sharpening his knife. Auda looked up from her work with a smile. She locked eyes with him, immediately noticing his tight-lipped smile but concerned expression. Her smile faltered for a second; she knew.

"Frid!" she called out from where she stood. "Get the ale from the stores. Tonight we're celebrating your father."


	5. Chapter 5: The Forge

Hi, my bad. I half forgot about the story, half got super fucking busy. This one is one of my personal favorite chapters though, and I hope you enjoy

Also, Pantera the Punk Dragon (which by the way is a cool name), I'm moderately interested in Germanic tribes. I had to do a bunch of research for this one. For example, I'm fairly confident the tribe names I chose were all real tribes, though I have no idea about where they actually were. I had a passing knowledge of the time period because when I took a couple years of Latin in school I learned a bit of Roman history... which is linked to Germanic history. So I don't have a super in depth knowledge of the time period. If you have some good info, I'd love to hear it so I can try to squeeze those details in there somewhere.

Chapter 5: The Forge

Sweat pooled on Hiccup's brow, threatening to pour down into his eyes and painfully cloud his vision. He paused, using his forearm to wipe away the building sweat, replacing it instead with a muddy mixture of forearm sweat and dirt. This wasn't even a hard task, it was about as routine as it can get—especially in comparison to his usual antics in the forge. He held a thin piece of metal in tongs, holding it over a concave metal slab. It wasn't the exertion that was causing to sweat so much, he was used to working in the forge. It was mostly the heat. The combination of the forge and the excess heat that Toothless gave off made the Forge feel almost as hot as it would in the middle of summer. He had foolishly closed all of the windows he could, because he thought it felt a little chilly. The furnace itself was hot enough to heat up the place quickly, but Toothless' additional contributions made the place sweltering hot in a very quick time. He would have opened the window and let the airflow bring the some balance to the otherwise inferno-like temperatures he was standing in. However, he was on a roll and he didn't want to break his focus for things like comfort. He brought his hammer down hard, causing it to ring clearly. Slowly the metal plate took the shape of a dome, a perfect centerpiece to his new shield. At a distance, it looked relatively ordinary. However, upon closer inspection you could see how it had a "Hiccup flair" to it.

At a distance, instead of the usual wooden circle that had the crest of the owner emblazoned in brilliant colors, it was just a dark gray. As you got closer you would tell it wasn't made of wood. At least, if you were looking at it from the outside, you wouldn't be able to tell. From the holder's perspective, you could would only see the wooden planks, but from the opposite side you would see that the front was plated in scales—dragon scales. They were dark gray, almost black but not quite. Hiccup had fastened them in such a way that they overlapped as much as they would in on a dragon. His shield was one of the few Viking shields that could have been held upside down, if you weren't careful. An another break from the norm, his shield was rimmed strangely in metal. At first glance, you would see that there was a band on the edge, instead of the normal leathery bindings. If you were the wielder, you would be able to tell that there the metal in fact only was half as There was a metal band that wrapped around the edge, but it was in addition the normal bindings that were placed there. In fact, it didn't even wrap all the way around the edge of the shield. The normal binding went all the way around, but the metal stopped just shy of being flush with the user's side of the shield. It had a striking look to it, a dark color outlined by a brilliant outline of shining, polished metal, and accented in the middle by the same. Or at least, it will be whenever he finishes this hammering this damn thing out. This is why he couldn't be bothered with things like opening a window, he was so close to finishing this one part, and then his masterpiece would be complete! How could he stop to do something unimportant, when he was so excited about this shield?

The metal let out a final ring as he finished his last hammer stroke. Satisfied with his work, Hiccup pulled the half dome up to eye-level, turning it this way and that. His practiced eye examined every facet of the object, officially declaring it satisfactory with a silent nod. He set it aside, putting away the tools he just used. Even though he was preoccupied with getting out the tools he needed to polish it, he was already thinking about how to attach it so that his new toy would work as effectively as Inferno did. He imagined how it could change things on the battlefield, if he could get all of his people outfitted with this. Of course, that required that it worked. Every one of his tests along the way was successful, but those were just tests. It wasn't fully assembled yet, and that would be the final test. But if it did work… it would be a gamechanger. Hiccup was so engrossed in his thoughts and daydreams of what might be, that he didn't even notice a visitor had entered the shop.

"Hiccup, is this a bad time?" Hiccup started slightly, jumping and whipping his head around.

"Oh hey Snotlout, no it's fine. I'm just working on a pet project."

"Oh? It's a… shield? Looks surprisingly normal for a Hiccup Original."

"I dare you to touch it."

Snotlout, being the manliest man on Berk, never backed down from a challenge. He was the best at everything—except the things that Hiccup was better at. As such, how could he back down from such a challenge, such a simple thing to once again prove his dominance? There was just something in Hiccup's smile that gave him pause.

"Nah, I'm good."

"Don't be a baby, c'mon. It needs testing."

"Nope, knowing you, it probably has razor blades to cut off my hand, or a spike will shoot out of it, pinning me to the wall or something."

"Fine, I guess if you want to be known as the guy who was too chicken to even touch a shield, be my guest."

Now that was taking it too far. Snotlout turned, slowly extending his hand towards the shield. He glanced up at Hiccup, whose smile was growing with every inch that his hands extended. Nope. Not worth it. He withdrew his hand.

"Not with you smiling like that."

"Fine. What'd you come in here for anyway, Snotlout?"

"Oh, I wanted to order some axes."

"Well why didn't you just say that, instead of dawdling while not touching my shield?"

"Well I was going to, but… hey you're the one who started talking about your dumb shield!"

"That doesn't stop you from ordering what you needed."

"I thought I would be nice by humoring your shenanigans, but now I have to pull you back to the grown up world, small fry."

"Dumbass."

"Twig."

"Meathead."

"Nerd."

Hiccup chuckled. "Ok, now what do you really want?"

"An axe."

"What kind?"

"Two handed, double bladed. Leather handle. If I could get it died black, with some red accent pieces, that'd be perfect."

"Wood type?"

"Oak, stained."

"Any inscriptions or anything?"

"Some kind of ornate design on the flat of the axe head. You can make whatever you feel like, as long as it has the Jorgenson crest and motto on it. So I guess the crest and motto centered, with some kind of pattern extending outwards from it. Make sense?"

"No it makes sense. Seems like you're going all out on this one, do you want anything else? Precious stones or something?"

"No, I want it to be fancy, but I still want it functional. Why even have an axe unless you can cleave someone in half with it?"

"Fair enough," Hiccup shrugged. "You realize how expensive this will be, right?"

"Yes."

"For starters, oak doesn't grow on this island, so we'll have to import it from the Bogs."

"Yeah, I know. It's supposed to be my father's gift to me as I assume responsibility for the Jorgenson Clan."

"Congratulations, that's something you've been looking forward to for a long time."

"Yeah, I have. And it's about time, too!"

"Why is that?"

"I've been taking over responsibilities from my father for months now, and I'm ready!"

"What have you been doing?"

"Oh trade negotiations, settling disputes, doing whatever I can to help the Jorgenson's out."

"How's that been going?"

"It's been different. There's been a helluva lot more things I need to just… be aware of. People to manage. Money to account for. Things to know about. Just a lot of small details I had no idea about."

"Yeah, I am still in that boat. It seems like every day Gobber tells me I forgot to take care of something I didn't know about. Food for this, stores for that, water here. Expiration dates for all of the above. Got to manage a bit of this and a bit of that. And it seems like everyone needs the Chief when I least want it."

"Exactly! I was about to go to bed the other day, when some merchant showed up at my doorstep who had a squabble with my younger brother. I then had to placate him while also doing what I could to help out the family. Couldn't let him take advantage of my brother being stupid, but I couldn't just tell him to leave me alone and then piss him off. That'd just tarnish the Jorgenson name. It's a delicate balance."

"Yeah, you're right. It's all about that balance. It's surprisingly hard to get it perfect."

"Yeah, it really is. You know, I used to be a huge idiot."

"Used to be?"

"Oh Har-dee-har har." Snotlout waggled his head back and forth in a mocking fashion. "But seriously, being the one in charge has kind of… changed me. I hate to admit it, but I was kind of rash. I think being responsible for more than just myself has sorta changed that."

"You know, now that you mention it, I haven't had to police up something stupid you've done in at least three or four days, now that you mention it."

"Hey, at least none of my mistakes never nearly wiped out our entire village, twice!"

"Thanks, Snotlout. I appreciate the vote of confidence you have in me," Hiccup said with a roll of his eyes.

"No wait, that's—"

"Anything else you wanted, Snotlout?"

"Nope, that's all," he said awkwardly loud. He started backing out of the forge, not taking his eyes off Hiccup. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it, but he couldn't be a bitch about it. So he stuck to what he said. He reached behind to grab the door. The door behind him slammed inwards, hitting him in the back and tossed him to the ground.

"Unf!" Astrid bounced off of his door that had been abruptly stopped by Snotlout's more solid mass. While her athleticism was unparalleled, there were some things—like mass—that being in really good shape just can't compensate for. And in this instance, Snotlout's additional mass proved to be more than an effective countermeasure to her physical prowess.

"Oh hey Snotlout, that's my fault. Here," she offered a hand to her, which he declined. He could get up on his own, thank you very much.

"No worries, it happens," he hopped up to his feet quickly, wiping his dirtied hands off on his trowsers. Snotlout, watched as Astrid walked past him into the forge. He hoped that Hiccup would be too distracted with his fiancée to be inclined to pursue him in the aftermath of his comments.

"Hey babe, what's up?" She asked, noting his fuming expression.

"Nothing."

"Hiccup," she said in a no-nonsense tone.

"It's nothing, really. Snotlout's just helping test out my new shield" He said, his irked expression changing to one of evil amusement. He was going to get back at him for his comment, damnit. Hiccup gestured with a flick of his hand towards the shield. Astrid tried to suppress a grin, though it sneaked out from behind her hand.

"What's so funny?" Hiccup said accusingly.

"Nothing." Hiccup crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "It's just your voice gets extra nasal when you're irritated. It just sounds kinda funny."

"It does get extra nasal."

"Shut up, Snotlout!" Hiccup barked. "Just touch the damn shield."

"No!"

"You better touch the shield, Snot."

"Don't call me that, my name is Snotlout!"

"Then touch the shield, Snot!"

"Both of you, calm down!" Astrid shouted crossly. She wasn't angry, but she was tired of watching Hiccup and Snotlout bicker over nonsense. Snotlout was known to be hardheaded, which definitely proved irksome to her, but usually Hiccup could deal with it. When he was this upset at Snotlout, usually Snotlout had done something dumb to deserve it.

"I will calm down, as soon as he touches the shield." Hiccup's displeased down was evident in his voice and demeanor.

"What's so special about this shield, anyway?" Snotlout challenged.

"You're the weapon expert, you tell me," he retorted in a mocking tone. Snotlout took it as a challenge.

"You added a lot of metal to it. You're a light person, you need a light shield or you'll be too slow on the battlefield. Obviously, it was designed to get you killed faster."

"Not with this!" He said, pointing to it proudly. "Go ahead, touch it."

"Absolutely not."

"Go on, touch it." Snotlout looked from his shit-eating grin, to the shield, then back to him.

"No."

"It'll be fine, I promise."

"Not until you tell me what it's going to do."

"I can't. Besides, it doesn't hurt that bad."

"Aha! I knew it! You were trying to trick me! I'd expect this from Ruff or Tuff, but not you," he said with an accusing finger pointing directly at Hiccup's nose.

"It's not a trick, I'm just not telling you what's going to happen. I need someone to test it who isn't expecting it. I need a natural response to the shield's abilities."

"If it's 'not a trick,' as you say, why the shit eating grin?"

"Because so far the reactions of people who expecting it are funny, I expected the same from an unknowing person."

"What's it do, cut off my hand? Because that would be awesome—but not very funny."

"No, nothing like that."

"Spray acid in my face?"

"No."

"Light me on fire?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"Touch the shield and you'll find out." Damn him, now he was curious. He was actually considering doing it. There were no spikes on it, nothing sharp as far as he could tell. And yet, he did say it would hurt. Snotlout ran his practiced eye back across the shield gain. He was looking for something like a trap door that shot sleep darts, or a button that launched a ball of fire from a miniature catapult or something. Something strange but with a Hiccup that might also be funny—something that also hurt. He sighed.

"I better get something out of this."

"How about I don't cut off all your trading contracts because of the comments you made earlier?"

"Seems reasonable to me," Astrid chimed in. She wasn't sure exactly what Snotlout had said, but it probably was something stupid and ignorant to get Hiccup this riled up.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me," Hiccup said with a sly grin.

"Ok, fine." Snotlout slowly reached out, extending his hand towards the black disk accented by gleaming metal. It looked innocuous enough. He set his palm against the scaly surface.

"Yow!" He hollered. A sharp pain jolted from his arm, pulsing down his legs in a single, sudden shock. His knees buckled unintentionally, and he caught himself on the table as he teetered forwards. His hand that he had placed on the shield came flying off with such speed that a shockwave probably formed behind it. His mind blanked for a second as he tried to regain control of her limbs. Eventually, he looked up, locking eyes with Hiccup.

"How do you feel?"

"What the fuck was that?"

"On a scale of one to ten with one being the worst and ten being the best, how good was it at rendering you combat ineffective?"

"What the hell did you do to me?"

"So I'll say that's a 'ten,'" Hiccup mumbled, pulling out a notebook from behind him and marking scribbling down some notes.

"Hiccup!"

"Congratulations Snotlout, you just got struck by lightning! Well, not really. But kinda."

" _Kinda_ struck by lightning?" All of his hair stuck out at odd angles from underneath his helmet, like every single strand of hair was straining to be loosed from him. Even his bushy forearms seemed extra fluffy. Overall, the appearance plus his panicked expression gave him a comical look.

"It wasn't lightning, more like mini lightning. I figured out something a couple of months ago when I was working on her wedding gift, and I—"

"My what?" Astrid's attention immediately shifted away from Snotlout. Hiccup cringed visibly, slowly turning his head towards his fiancée. He left his hands frozen in mid air, still hanging precisely where they were when he paused his hand gestures when he realized he had made a huge mistake.

"Yeah, the gift I'm making you for the wedding. Surprise!" He coupled the weak, half-assed surprise with a sarcastic hand gesture that sold how irritated he was at himself for revealing his gift before he wanted too.

"What is it?"

"Uh, it's a surprise."

"But what is it? Is it done?"

"It is, but do you really want to know?"

"Will I like it?"

"I hope so." Snotlout noticed the two bickering, and slowly started backing out the door. He carefully eased open the handle, silently pressing rearwards towards the town. By the time either of them would notice him, he would be long gone.

"So… yes I'll like it. Is it armor?"

"Maybe."

"Is it a weapon?"

"Maybe."

"What is it?"

"It's a satchel bag," he said. "Just kidding!" he added quickly, after he noticed the confused look on her face.

"Was it really going to be a satchel bag, but now you're changing it up because you think I would be disappointed?"

"No, it was never a satchel bag."

"What is it?" She asked, exasperatedly.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes!" she said, half shouting.

"Do you want it now, or should I wait until the wedding day to give it to you?" Astrid pondered the question for a moment. There were pros and cons to both sides to be sure. Pro: have a new gift now. Con: not having the satisfaction of having the gift then. Pro: Hiccup worked hard on it, and she'd like him to give it to her according to his original plan. Con: She was going to lose her mind waiting for it. Pro: She could show off this awesome gift her husband made for her for their wedding. Con: she could show off the awesome gift her husband made for their wedding today.

"Yes, I'd like it. Wait, no, I'll wait until the wedding. But it'd be nice to have now. Nah, I'll wait. But on the flipside…" she trailed off, her mind flipping back and forth. It was a hard decision to make.

"Well?"

"Now, please," her hand gestures said she wasn't fully convinced in the decision made, but Hiccup wasn't dawdling any longer. He reached behind his work bench, retrieving the gift that he'd spent so much time in the past couple of months making.

He pulled a bundle out from behind the workbench. It was wrapped mostly in cloth, so that initially she couldn't see what he had made. A portion of the belt peaked out from underneath the rags he had covered it in, the band of leather dangling down below a reasonable distance from the package itself. The belt was a dark leather, and flecked with something that she couldn't quite see. Hiccup extended his arms, passing her the gift.

She reached over and grabbed it with her hands, noting the weight as she turned it vertically, so that the whole of the gift was supported by her left arm, She took her right arm to trace the length of the belt. The leather was felt band new and supple. The dark color that she had noticed earlier was offset by a sparkling band of thin silver—silver thread—woven across the belt in an intricate pattern. Her hand fell down to the fastener, which was a shiny piece of steel. Strong, yet formed into a flowing shape.

She tossed back the first corner of the rags, revealing a handle and a cross guard. The pommel was a perfect circle, on one side was the Hofferson crest engraved into the surface. On the other, the Haddock's. The grip was made from leather of the same color and texture as her belt, though admittedly much thinner strips in order to wrap around the handle itself. The top and bottom of the handle were wrapped with a silver rope. The cross guard itself was intricately engraved with miniatures of the battle with the Red Death on one side, and an engraving of Stormfly on the other. She gaped at the handle, turning it over repeatedly, staring at one side for a long time and then the other. She eventually glanced at Hiccup, her mouth still agape. He made a motion to continue unwrapping the gift. She grabbed the cloth again, tugging on it sharply and letting it drop to the floor.

The scabbard was wrapped in the same leather that the handle was bound in, giving the ensemble the look of a complete set, not cobbled together from scraps like the weapons that many Vikings had. Inlaid into the leather was silver pictures, small pictures each one a small snapshot from different points in Astrid's life. The first one was a picture of Berk, followed quickly by depiction of childbirth. The final picture was two dragons in flight, both with riders. The hair on the rider of the second dragon rode free on the wind, trailing behind her as the two sailed on an invisible wind.

"Hiccup, I…"

"Open it."

Astrid slid the blade into the light slowly, marveling at the work that appeared with each inch of the weapon that emerged from the scabbard. The blade gleamed dangerously in the light of the forge, the polished steel lighting on fire with the reddish glow from the furnace. But… the surface was marred. Astrid's attention was pulled from the keen edge to patterns emerging on the blade. It was almost as if Hiccup had polished extremely carefully around where he wanted the script to appear. On one side of the blade, the word ASTRID appeared in careful, noble handwriting. The other side bore the inscription HADDOCK.

"How…" Astrid trailed off, prying her eyes off the blade to glance at Hiccup. Her gaze returned hungrily to the sword, feasting on every detail of the sword.

"Acid," he said. "I got it from the dragons. I polished the blade as best as I could, traced where I wanted the letters, then carefully poured acid onto it until it looked the way I wanted it too. I hope you like it, I thought it was a unique look."

"It's perfect," she said quietly, like if she spoke too loudly she'd wake up from this fantastic dream.

"Seriously? I wasn't convinced you'd like the way the fullers look. I thought I recalled you liked a more subtle look, but I couldn't get the script to look right that way. If you want, I can try again with a different cut of steel." Astrid jerked her hands away, pulling the sword out of reach of Hiccup's grasp.

"Don't you dare ruin this blade."

"So you like it?"

"Like it?" She spun her wrist, twisting the blade around. It felt naturally balanced, hand blended into metal as her arm extended into the gleaming instrument. "I love it."

"It's no replacement for a battle axe, that's for sure. I still thought you might like it for other things though."

She reached down, grabbing the pommel with her second hand. It was a one-and-a-half handed sword. It was designed for one handed use, but the handle was long enough that she could wrap her second hand around the handle, as long as she didn't mind her fingers resting on the pommel if she needed that extra strength.

"It'll make an excellent weapon in combat. I was looking for a better sword in case I lose the axe."

"You sure? You don't have to start carrying just because I made it. It can just sit over the mantle if you want, I wouldn't be upset."

"Nonsense, a weapon this finely crafted deserves to cleave a man in two." Astrid said with finality, snapping the blade back into its scabbard with an audible crack. "It's the best sword I have ever seen, and I'll be damned if I don't carry it to war."

"Ok, just as long as you aren't doing it on my behalf."

"Oh trust me, it's not just because it's a gift from you. How'd you think of using acid?"

Hiccup's eyes lit up, "Oh that! Well, I tried a bunch of different things. I wanted to put your name on the blade, but couldn't find a way to do it without cutting into the blade. The goal was to get it to be something that wouldn't disrupt the integrity of the blade. Paint wore off quickly, no matter how I hardened it. The next thing I tried was burning it in with focused but intense heat. It did change the color of the blade in that small area, but it weakened it significantly. About that time I saw some acid fall off of a Changewing and start burning a log away. That's when I first thought that it could be used to in small amounts to write on metal."

"And then you made this?" Astrid gestured at her early gift.

"Well, I practiced a bunch of times on copper, which," he paused, gesturing back at his shield, "is how I got the idea for this."

Astrid felt bad for a moment. Hiccup had been in the middle of explaining his new gadget that he had built, and she had completely distracted him. She wasn't a huge fan of all of his gadgets. A lot of them were asking for trouble. Like the wingsuit. Sure, it was cool, but she couldn't help but feel nervous whenever he took a flying leap off of Toothless' back. This time, he was not jumping from insane heights to near certain demise, he was harnessing lightning! Well 'mini' lightning, according to him. Whatever the hell that meant. She wanted to be able to have that carefree attitude she used to have, where they could all risk their lives doing stupid shit, but she just couldn't anymore. Somewhere in there, her mindset had shifted. Maybe it was when they were no longer friends, but something more intimate. Maybe it was when they became officially a couple. Maybe it was when they became betrothed. Somewhere in there, she no longer wanted him to take needless risks. She wanted to know he was coming at night, and that he wasn't falling to death somewhere. There were some risks that had to be taken of course, but playing with lightning wasn't one of them. She'd never tell him this out loud of course, she barely admitted it to herself. But the voices of concern definitely nagged at the back of her mind nowadays. However, both she and Hiccup were unimaginably busy with their newfound responsibilities. Tinkering and making new things were one of those few things that Hiccup drew great satisfaction from, so she'd never saw a word to try to stop him from creating new projects in the forge.

"While I was testing it out on copper, I figured something out. Well to be perfectly honest, I don't really understand it yet. But I know that it works… sort of." Hiccup paused, rearranging some things on his workbench. He pulled some sketches out from behind a stack of other sketches. "When you have copper and acid together in layer it creates… uh mini lightning for lack of a better term. Well, I figured I could make it intentionally by building these," he said, tossing a cylinder that was slightly smaller than a fist to Astrid.

"What is this? Will I get struck by lightning if I hold it?" She said, catching it gingerly.

"Nope! I'm still trying to figure out exactly why that is. But, I found out that mini lightning likes to travel along metal. I can hook it up on the back of the shield, but the while metallic rim will zap you. And that," he said, gesturing towards the cylinder, "is what generates the lightning. Sort of."

"How does it work?" Ok, maybe playing with mini lightning was foolhardy, stupid, and bound to shorten his lifespan, but damnit if it wasn't interesting. For all the worrying she did, she could understand how he could get lost all day working on this stuff.

"Still trying to figure it out, honestly. But I figured how that you can store it temporarily. This clump of copper wire here," he said, gesturing to a blob of something on the back of his shield, "is what stores it. So I can have three of these things building up a bigger zap than I otherwise would be able to."

"But you have to touch them with the edge of the shield to zap them, right?"

"Not completely. The front here is all Skrill scales, so the mini lightning travels along it as well. Touch anywhere on here and get hit with a bolt of lightning. Also, if you try to stick a sword or some other metal weapon in here, the lightning will travel off the shield, down your weapon and into your hand. You attack me, and you get struck with lightning. Good shield, right?" Hiccup looked at her, the thrill of explaining his new gizmo still lighting his face up.

"Yeah, I have to admit it, it does seem useful. A bit heavy though," she commented. She glanced at Hiccup, covering her mouth with her hand, trying to conceal her laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing."

"Did I say something?"

"No, not really?"

"Not really?"

"No, it's just that your voice gets extra nasal when you get excited about something. It just sounds kinda funny."

"Awesome, that's just what I need. More things for people not take me seriously for."

"Oh stop, I think it's endearing. It's just extra Hiccupy."

"That might make me feel better if it wasn't used as an insult most of my life."

"Yeah, but not anymore. Being Hiccupy is what got us to all of this," she gestured at the village. Looking out the window, you could easily see three or four dragons perched lazily on rooftops, an equal number walking around on ground level, all peacefully cohabiting the village with their human counterparts. "And it's what led me to all of this," she said, gesturing up towards his body.

"One of these days I'll convince myself that you're serious; somedays it just seems so impossible." She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him.

"Still seem impossible?"

"Compared to where I was before the whole Toothless incident? Absolutely." She frowned. She preferred not to remember how badly they all used to treat him. It was better to pretend that part of her life story never happened. She tried to change the subject.

"So, have you talked with Val… Mrs… have you talked with your mom recently?"

"Honestly, I've been pretty busy with prepping for the gathering of the Chiefs to talk to her much. It might make me a bad son, but it just hasn't been a huge priority recently."

"How does being busy make you bad?"

"Well, I should be catching up on all the lost time, but I would understand if she thought I was actively avoiding her. It's not true, but it would be understandable if she thought that."

"I'm sure she doesn't think that. She used to be a Chief's wife, I'm sure she knows how busy it can be." Astrid cringed internally. She meant it as a 'back before she left' not as a 'back before your dad died.' She wasn't sure how he would take it, but it could have easily been interpreted incorrectly.

"Yeah, I know that. But I know she's been trying to spend time with me, and there have been a couple of times I've had to run out on her and do something. I know she's putting forth the effort and I feel like I'm snubbing her." Hiccup frowned, his enthusiasm for his shield vanishing as his eyes fell to the floor.

"Hey, hey," Astrid grabbed his shoulder. "You're doing everything you can. She can't expect more than everything you have."

"Yeah, but I do. So far, my best hasn't been good enough. I need to fix that."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, you're doing a good job. I mean look at what you've done in the last few months. You've re-established our food stores for the winter, built a bunch of new houses for the new dragons, repaired most of the damage that Drago inflicted on the village, and somehow in your free time made me this beautiful blade and invented a new type of shield. That's a feat for even the world's greatest over-achiever."

"But see, instead of making myself a shield I should have spent time with Mom. What kind of son am I to prioritize myself over my own mother?"

"A totally normal one. Everyone needs time for themselves. C'mon, let's go home. We can talk about this more over a bowl of soup."

"Who is making it, you or me?"

"I was planning on it."

"How 'bout I help?"

"Why? You've had a long day."

"Last time you made soup it emerged from the stove in brick-form." Hiccup dodged as a fist flew past his shoulder


End file.
